Mass Effect: The Reclaimers
by Left hand turn signal
Summary: During the battle for Earth, a few UNSC soldiers make contact with a group of aliens, with their new allies they try to do all they can to save their species. Meanwhile, one of the remaining inner colonies, Shanxi, goes dark.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer, all this belongs to bioware and bungie. I can't promise this story is good, I wrote most of this while away from the internet. The story won't really follow the events of mass effect. the basics will be there, but everything will be happening differently_

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya found herself in a cramped maintenance shaft aboard an aging asari freighter, the _Shantea_. She had been hired as a mechanic by the captain, a relatively young asari named Lantea. Most of the crew tended to ignore her, and Tali liked it better that way. Most people she met greeted her with open suspicions and hostility, a little bit of loneliness she could get over.

The captain and the engineering crew were all generally nice, especially once they discovered her skill with starship technology. The rest of the crew not so much, it was obvious that most of them subscribed to the notion that all quarians were beggars and thieves, she was happy to generally stay out of their way, which was one reason she found herself crawling through one of the ship's maintenance shafts.

She had just removed the access panel covering one of the ship's VI cores. This particular VI was assigned to monitor the element zero core powering the ship. The freighter was old enough it didn't use a centralized VI to control its systems, and the hardware supporting the systems was prone to failure, no matter how many times she went in to fix them, they still managed to fail regularly. She was trying to get a connection soldered when she heard the intercom.

"Tali'Zorah, the captain wants to speak with you on the bridge."

She finished what she was doing as quickly as she could, hastily sealing the access panel behind her, and rushed up to the bridge. Along the way she passed a few of the asari crewmembers of the ship, and a few of their passengers, a research group headed by Dr. Liara T'soni. They were generally lounging about and slacking off, so different from the migrant fleet she had called home not six months ago. There were one or two turians in the mix, but they were in the definite minority.

Tali walked onto the bridge, most of the on duty crew were at their stations, though their attention seemed fixated on a small cluster of people standing around a display in the corner. She noted Liara T'soni and the captain among them. Tali walked up to the group, "Captain Lantea?"

The asari turned to face her, and waved her in closer, pointing to the display. It showed the results of a long range probe. The captain began talking, "We sent a probe ahead to our destination, the site of some supposed prothean artifacts. It's been returning some strange readings, I was wondering if you could clean up the data a bit."

"I'll have to look at, but I should be able to do something," Tali responded. She activated her omni tool and began to download the data to a personal OSD so she could properly analyze it. Tali tapped a few commands into the omni-tool. "Hmm… This might take a while, the probe seems to have malfunctioned, these readings don't seem right."

The captain smiled, "Take your time, we're still several hours from arriving in the system."

"Yes, I'll get to work," Tali mumbled out, her mind already in motion, trying to piece together the corrupted segments of data and make sense of the probe's scan.

She wandered back to her quarters near the engine room, working on the data the whole way. Once she got to the cramped closet like space, she activated a larger holographic display from her omnitool. A lot of the data appeared to be missing, corrupted from its transmission by FTL buoy; apparently there was a large amount of radiation in the target system. She finally managed to clean the data up enough that her omni-tool could interpret enough to make sense of it. The only device that seemed to work properly on the probe was the mineral scanner.

Apparently there was a large belt of titanium around the second planet, probably artificial. Limited energy readings came from the asteroid belt, of a strange type. Other unknown alloys were present in very limited numbers. Other than that, there wasn't much data from the probe.

Tali looked up at the clock, apparently she had been completely engrossed in her work, the projected ETA to the unknown system had come and gone. She nearly hit herself for her inattentiveness, and rushed to the bridge, hoping that she hadn't been too late to give the captain her findings.

Upon arriving at the command deck, she found the asari crew staring at the main monitor, the archeologist, Dr. T'soni, stood at the back of the bridge. Tali looked to the monitor as well.

"Keelah," she whispered under her breath. The screen displayed a video feed from one of the freighter's probes. A massive field of debris spread across the view, in front of a planet. The planet itself appeared wracked by storms. Every so often, a brief break in the clouds would show a devastated land, parts appeared to glow a dull red, overlapping craters covered other parts of the planet.

The number of ships and stations in orbit of the planet was mind boggling. Hundreds of wrecked craft circled the planet lazily.

The bridge was silent for several minutes, until finally the captain turned around to face the doctor. "So, what do you think? Are they prothean?"

"I am not sure, but, all my research does point to a violent event that wiped out the Protheans, I don't know we would have to look."

Tali took this opportunity to interrupt. "Um, I just completed my analysis of the first probe. Its scanners said that, debris field was made of titanium."

Liara brought her hand to her chin as if thinking, "Hmm… none of the dig sites I've visited suggest the Protheans used something as uh, mundane, as titanium."

"Well then who were they?" The captain asked no one in particular.

Tali asked herself the same question, saddened by the thought of a race apparently wiped out, just like what had nearly happened to her own race three hundred years ago. Then she realized something that sent a chill of fear through her spine.

"Captain, the debris, is recent."

Captain Lantea whipped around to face the quarian, "What!"

"Look at it, there's still small bits of junk, there's too much of it. All that would have fallen into the atmosphere within a few decades since it was first made. And think about the storms. If that planet was bombarded, those would have died down in even less time."

One of the crewwomen spoke up. "Well then, who did this? I've never heard of a planet so… destroyed, except during the krogan rebellions."

The captain turned back around to face the monitor, "It would probably be best not to be around, in case they come back."

Liara stepped forward. "But what about this species, maybe we should try and see if anything remains, bring it to the citadel, and warn them about whoever did this."

Lantea cupped her head in her hands, mulling it over. "Okay, we'll see if we can find an intact ship in that mess, see if we can salvage its databanks. After that though, we're getting the hell out of here, I don't want to be in this system one second longer than necessary."

ooooooo

John Shepard, XO of the prowler _Midnight Dreary_, stood in the middle of the CIC, looking over a representation of the Epsilon Eridani system. Former home to the military hub of the UNSC, Reach, now just a graveyard. The captain, and by extension the prowler and crew had been called from the battle for earth for something.

What that something was sparked equal parts hope and anger. The elites, the military leaders of the covenant, and those generally held responsible for the glassing of nearly a hundred colony worlds and reach itself, had apparently developed a guilty conscience. Now, after the slaughter of billions, they had finally realized their damn religion was false. As much as he hated the idea of working with such butchers, he knew they were truly earth's only chance at defeating the covenant for good.

Another quieter part of his mind hoped desperately for peace at last.

After nearly three days of waiting, something finally appeared in the holographic display. The "dumb" AI, Metis, in charge of the sophisticated suite of monitoring systems and plotting slipspace jumps, appeared. "Two contacts, covenant frigate and covenant CCS class battlecruiser at primary jump point."

Shepard gestured to the table, "Do we have any drones near the jump point?"

"Yes, drone two seven, and drone three three."

Shepard reached for his nearby helmet and sealed it to his ONI modified ODST armor. The rest of the crew in the CIC began to do the same.

Shepard keyed a button on the side of the holo-table. "Captain, two covenant contacts detected."

The intercom came to life, sounding general quarters across the ship. Orders came over the intercom, most of them from the operations officer, coordinating the actions of the dozens of crew. On a prowler, being such a small vessel, the XO generally stayed out of the operation of the ship unless the captain was incapacitated. His job was primarily to lead the ONI commando teams stationed aboard ship. In ship combat though, it was essentially his duty to sit around and watch the battle.

"Metis, bring up a visual from probe two seven." Shepard leaned in close to the holotable. An image of an empty starfield filled the screen.

"Bringing covenant vessels into view," The screen began to shift rapidly, the moving stars almost dizzying. Soon the familiar bulbous purple shape of a covenant frigate came in to view, along with the blue glow of covenant plasma torpedoes. Some of them curved off away from their target, others where struck by identical torpedoes fired from the frigate. The battlecruiser's shields flashed as a torpedo from the frigate splashed across its bow.

The AI's voice spoke up again, "Detecting UNSC IFF codes from covenant frigate."

_Damn_, thought Shepard, _Why can't it ever be easy_?

The prowler's heavily baffled engines came to life as it made its way towards the battle. Shepard felt the slight tug of acceleration over the artificial gravity.

Shepard watched the battle between the two covenant ships. He didn't know much about covenant ship to ship combat, but he knew the frigate was hideously outmatched by the CCS battlecruiser chasing it down. A second plasma torpedo hit the frigate and dropped its shields. A third curved around the ship, impossibly close, leaving an angry black burn across the frigate's hull. By this point the frigate had made it to the dubious safety of the orbital debris field.

His attention was drawn away from the battle by the intercom.

The captain's voice came over the speaker system, "Standby to retrieve phantom, Commander Shepard report with a security team two to the docking bay." Shepard made his way to the ship's armory. He met the on duty security team soon after leaving the CIC. Each one grabbed a SMG and a magnum from the ship's store. Each member of the team also grabbed two grenades, just in case the elites turned hostile.

"Okay people, remember, we aren't shooting the alien bastards today, we're making friends, so we can kill the prophets who started this war." With that short speech he and the squad polarized their visors and took up positions in the ship's small docking bay. A pelican took up space to one side. There was barely room for the expected phantom. Six members of his twelve man squad took up position on the upper catwalk; the others flanked him in the bay. They all had their SMGs pointed at the phantom as it came in to dock.

Shepard noticed plasma scoring across the dropship, even a crater in its armor that appeared to be from a rocket launcher. It also had a very… green… paintjob. The gravlift near the back lit up. A half dozen humans jumped down from the dropship, each one was armed, though some carried covenant weapons. Four of the six had bandages on various limbs. Evidence of some hard fought battle, wherever they had come from.

The next three to exit the gravlift made his finger twitch involuntarily to the trigger of his gun. A supreme effort of will kept him from actually firing; he found it miraculous that none of the other soldiers in the bay started shooting purely on reflex.

Three elites stood underneath the gravlift. None of them carried weapons in their hands, though they all had at least one in a magnetic holster at their sides.

Keyes walked up to Shepard, "Holster those weapons soldier."

"Yes, ma'am," Shepard replied and clipped his SMG to his side. He followed the lieutenant commander out of the hangar bay, followed by the other survivors, the elites, and finally the security team, who still had their weapons in hand and aimed at the hulking aliens.

They arrived on the bridge, where the captain was busy staring at a map of the debris field. Miranda walked up to the man and saluted, "Sir!"

Without looking up from the map the captain answered the commander. "At ease," He brought up an image of an orbital defense platform on the bridge holoprojector. "Commander, what do you know about the early model orbital defense platforms?"

"Captain, are you sure this is the right time? We need to get to earth, stop the covenant from activating the halo array."

"I am well aware of the stakes commander, but if we leave for earth now, it will be at least three days before we arrive in orbit. That covenant cruiser could make it back, glass the planet, and sit around waiting for us to arrive. We need to take it out before we leave." The ONI veteran fixed the much younger commander with a steel hard gaze which softened when she nodded in agreement, "Now, ODP number seven should still be relatively intact, if we can use its supplemental generators to build up a charge on the MAC, we can take out that cruiser in one shot."

"I volunteer for the mission sir," Shepard looked to his captain. He knew the mission would be dangerous, but it was exactly what ONI commandos trained for, a high risk boarding operation.

The captain nodded, "Good luck commander."

ooooooo

Tali stepped off the shuttle along with a few armed members of the _Shantea's_ crew, and Dr. T'soni. The asari were dressed in hard suits, and carried a mish mash of weapons, a few assault rifles shotguns and SMGs. Dr. T'soni carried only a small pistol. Tali lifted her shotgun up to firing position, remembering all the pre-pilgrimage combat lessons. The magnetic clamps in her boots clicked as they attached to the deck. There was a distinct lack of air and gravity on the station.

The station was as big as a dreadnaught if not larger, and dominated by a huge, apparently hollow space in the center. Tali's personal theory was that it was some sort of primitive mass accelerator. The shuttle had docked in the middle habitation ring, in some sort of hangar, or cargo bay.

The bay was cavernous. Hookups for various craft of some kind littered the bay. Landing pads surrounded the sides; which gave evidence that the station had artificial gravity at some point.

Tali walked up to what might have been a maintenance airlock, something made to transfer small amounts of personnel in and out of the bay. A small non-holographic keypad sat to the side. She sighed, without a standard interface, hacking a ship's security system could be a real pain.

She removed the panel and found herself pleasantly surprised. It was a simple keypad, a small data cable left the device, but the locking mechanism was easily bypassed, and automatic systems kicked in, cycling the airlock.

The inner door opened, into a vacuum filled corridor, and the air that had been cycled in was promptly sucked back out. The corridor beyond was lit with a dull red glow. Tali guessed the red was emergency lighting, she knew that asari and turian vessels used the same colors in this situation.

The asari began heading down the corridor, looking around at their surroundings. The space station had seen some hard use, judging by the scuffed floor. The lens on one of the lighting strips was cracked. Tali and the asari crew would have walked right by, but the archaeologist stopped them.

"Stop for a minute. This wasn't smashed by some loading accident, it would have been replaced. It looks like someone did this on purpose." She looked around for a few minutes, while the rest of the group stood around awkwardly. "See?" Liara held up a small shard of plastic, from its rest position against a wall. "That would have been cleaned up if it happened before whatever attack wiped these people out."

One of the asari spoke up, "How the hell did you think of that?"

Liara seemed to act a lot more awkward answering the question, "Well, on a dig, attention to detail is an important skill. It's something I picked up at those prothean dig sites."

"So, what exactly does it tell us?" asked another asari, who seemed to have a too tight grip on her assault rifle and looked nervously around the corridor.

"Well, that I don't know exactly, there must be some reason."

Tali bent in close to the smashed light, and started pulling off the rest of the lens. "Looks like pretty typical LED strip lighting, there are still a few old looking capacitors here and there; the rest of it is solid state."

The asari all shrugged at that revelation.

"It's not much I know, but I don't think this tech is very advanced compared to citadel systems." Tali supplied helpfully.

The group set off again, looking for a computer system or something similar. It took them longer than normal to make their way through the space station, as every blast door was shut and sealed. Tali found what appeared to be a robust security system in place. Each time she bypassed a door her omnitool detected a detailed transmission being sent back to some unknown destination.

She stood up as the latest in a line of blast doors slid open and turned to voice her concerns to the rest of the group. Tali stopped as she noticed they all had surprised expressions on their face. Tali slowly turned around and was amazed at the sight that greeted her. She stepped over the threshold and found the pleasant pull of artificial gravity on the other side.

Plants lined various stairs and walkways through a large open park-like structure. A window showed a view of the starry sky. The central spire of the space station rose ominously into the distance. "Wow," Tali muttered under her breath, now slightly jealous of the extreme amount of room. If the fleet could retrofit this vessel with an FTL drive they could house thousands of quarians, hundreds in this room alone.

Tali put that thought out of her mind and continued around a corner. She almost threw up in her helmet at the sight. Bodies were strewn about. Several small alien figures lay in pools of faintly luminescent blue blood, their bodies torn apart. At the top of a flight of stairs another darkly armored body lay slumped against some sort of mounted weapon, dried rust colored blood coated the steps where it had flowed from the dead alien.

"By the goddess…" She heard Liara behind her, he turned around to try and avoid looking at the scene of carnage, only to see more blood splatters on the floor above. Tali closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.

She opened her eyes to see the asari doctor kneeling next to one of the little corpses.

"Tali, come here, tell me what you make of this."

Tali walked over hesitantly. The doctor was obviously a lot less squeamish about dead bodies; she turned one over on its side and removed a small device from its head.

Tali gingerly accepted whatever it was from the asari, and looked it over, trying not to think about where it came from. "It looks like some sort of rebreather, which would mean that these aliens didn't live on this station."

"Yeah that was my conclusion as well." Liara stood up and walked up the stair where the second kind of alien was slumped at his post.

This second one was roughly the same size as a quarian or asari; it was wearing some sort of heavy armor. Tali brought up her omnitool for a quick scan. What she found amazed her. The soldier's guns were all chemical based projectile weapons; there was no trace of element zero anywhere. She gave voice to something that had been bothering her since she came aboard. "There's no element zero whatsoever, anywhere in this whole station. How the hell did they have artificial gravity?"

One of the asari scoffed, "That's impossible, you have to have it wrong, every species discovered at least knew something about element zero."

Tali shot the asari a dirty look, she didn't know how much of it could be seen through her mask but the crewwoman got the message. "I'm not wrong, this whole station is the only thing that seems wrong, No element zero, but technology that needs Eezo to function. Dead bodies everywhere, but no sign of who did this, or any survivors."

Tali shuddered, "I don't like this."

Their communications lit up from the _Shantea_, "People, get back here now, two ships just entered the system, they look like dreadnaughts."

Panic started to set in, Tali started to run after the asari as they tried to hurry back to the ship. She started to fall behind, slowly but surely. By the time they got back to the bay she had fallen nearly twenty meters behind the others. They ran into the shuttle, ignoring their missing fellow.

All of them except one, the scientist stopped for a moment to look back. When she turned back she found the door to the shuttle shut in her face. Tali and Liara banged on the door but to no effect, the shuttle took off and sped out of the hangar bay.

Tali yelled out obscenities that would have made a krogan blush at the retreating shuttle. She stopped as the craft suddenly exploded.

Her eyes widened as an organic looking purple craft blew through the debris and began circling back around towards the hangar bay.

Liara was standing there, still dumbfounded by events, so Tali grabbed her arm and shouted at her, "Come on, let's get out of here!" That seemed to motivate the asari. They ran back towards the air lock. She felt rather than heard impacts of weapons fire around her. The two barely made it through the airlock, when it slammed shut behind them, and started cycling air in again. Only this time something was different, Tali couldn't quite place what it was.

"The gravity is on!" Liara exclaimed.

Tali nearly smacked herself for not noticing artificial gravity. She didn't have time though, she felt the door behind her start to heat up, and as soon as the inner door opened she broke into a sprint.

Liara spoke again between gasping for breath, "What… is going… on… here?"

Tali looked forward, noticing that some of the lights were now off and others where on. Doors that had been closed as they made their way through the ship were now open. An obvious path was being lit up for them, but why.

"Hold up." Tali stopped, the asari did as well. "How do we know this isn't some sort of sick trap laid by whoever killed these people? We could be being led into some sort of holding pen or something."

As she said that air started hissing into the station through several vents. "It feels like we're being herded somewhere."

She heard an alien sounding shriek behind her. Tali spun around, shotgun already in hand, and spotted two avian like aliens sprint around the corner. On spotting them she simply reacted, her shotgun blew a large hole in the chest of the first one. Her second shot bounced off some sort of hand held shield. The impact caused the predatory looking alien to stumble. A biotic shove courtesy of Liara sent it flying back into a bulkhead.

Other aliens soon came around the corner. About a half dozen of the little ones she had seen dead deeper in the station, and one towering alien, even larger than a Krogan. It seemed to be wearing some sort of heavy armor, and it yelled something and pointed at Liara and her.

Tali did the first thing that came to mind, she threw a tech mine at the group. The little ones seemed to cower in fear. The big one crouched down and yelled in anger.

The mine exploded, and to her surprise the big alien's armor seemed to fall apart and shatter, like mass effect based tech armor. It roared and charged forward on all fours. She shot it center of mass, barely slowing the monster down. The thing crushed one of the smaller aliens in its berserker charge. She jumped to the side at the last minute, it charged past her and skidded to a stop.

Liara shot it with her pistol, doing about as much good as her earlier shotgun blast. It turned around and prepared to charge again. Before it could, the door it was standing in slammed shut, crushing the creature. The little ones all fled in a panic, throwing their arms about and screaming in high pitched voices.

Tali looked at the bloodstained door, now open and revealing a lit corridor, obviously beckoning them to continue. Deep growls and barks could be heard from where the aliens had come from.

Liara gestured to the open door, "Better than sticking around waiting for more of those things…"

"We might as well." Tali said and began running down the open corridor. "I feel like I'm in a damn horror vid."

Tali could have sworn she heard laughter from down the corridor at that statement.


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard rode in the front of a pelican with a younger pilot named joker. They were trying to get aboard the super MAC without being detected. A feat made both easier and harder by the two covenant warships busy dueling each other in the space nearby.

"Easy Joker, don't want them to see us sneaking a sucker punch in do we?" Shepard reminded the pilot.

"Hey, who spent a whole two months training to fly covert insertion missions here? And who saved your ass on tribute? Me? I thought so."

Shepard knew the pilot would probably flip him the bird if he wasn't busy with the controls. Joker was one of the best pilots he had seen, he was originally the pilot of a corvette during several outer colony battles, but he had time on longswords, pelicans, hornets, and essentially anything else with wings, or rockets. That skill had brought him to the attention of ONI, where he had apparently been trained for some secret project before being transferred to flying a pelican on a prowler.

Joker might have been a bit resentful of being stuck flying a 'big fat target' as he called it, but Shepard had reason to be grateful. His flying had saved his life on numerous occasions. Now he was hoping Joker could pull it off again.

"Never thought we would come back to Reach…" the ace pilot muttered under his breath.

Shepard assumed the comment had been addressed to no one in particular so he didn't respond. Instead he watched the co-pilots display, keeping track of the duel between covenant vessels. "That elite frigate is just about done for."

"Took 'em long enough, those CCS'ers pack a hell of a punch." Joker replied.

"You know the reports; the split lipped bastards are supposed to be a shit-ton smarter than the bravo-kilos." Shepard watched the frigate finally break up. A few escape pods and phantoms tried to make a run for it.

"How much is a shit-ton worth anyway?" Joker asked absentmindedly.

"About one and a half fuck-loads," Shepard replied without missing a beat. He saw the various escape craft run away into the debris field, followed closely by small ships launched by the brute ship. "We might have a problem, the Brutes are chasing down escape craft, and a couple phantoms are heading right towards us."

"Well damn, everyone hold on to your hats, this'll be a little rough." Joker announced to the commandos riding in the back.

Shepard brought up the controls for the nose mounted auto cannon and wing missile pods. Joker kept his course, until it became obvious that the covenant had noticed him. When he turned to face the first phantom Shepard was ready. He waited until the guided munitions had a lock and fired. Several dozen high explosive rockets arced out towards the first covenant dropship, blowing it apart. The second however had plenty of time to fire its own plasma weapons, melting and blasting large holes in the port wing of the pelican.

"Shit!" Joker began to wrestle with the controls, and they started spinning out of control. "Brace for impact!"

Shepard saw the side of the station get bigger and bigger each time the pelican swung around. He heard a crunching sound, and then everything went black.

ooooooo

Shepard reached up to try and massage away his hangover, only to find his hand bounce off some sort of helmet. His memory came back with a start, and he looked around. Joker seemed to be thrashing about in his seat; the door leading to the back of the pelican was sealed.

He hit the release for his restraints. They came apart with little trouble. He walked over to Joker, who seemed to be in the middle of a seizure.

Shepard noticed his radio was powered down and flicked it on, "I'm stuck, I can't reach my knife, and those brutes are about to get in here." Joker's frantic words came over the now open channel.

Shepard began to notice a few more things besides the headache; first, the pelican had crashed through an observation window and landed with the nose stuck in between two staircases. He heard something a lot more distressing from the back of the pelican, the deep throaty laugh of a brute, and the distinctive 'thunk' sound as a spiker round hit flesh.

Adrenaline hit him full force, the headache seemed to evaporate. His knife was in his hand before he even thought about it. He cut Joker's restraints and the two of them began to climb out of the broken canopy of the cockpit. He would avenge his dead teammates later.

The deep translated voice of brute cam from behind them, "Check the pilots you runt!"

_Shit_, thought Shepard, that meant one of them was about to come through, they wouldn't have time to get away. Thinking quickly he grabbed the small fire extinguisher near Joker's seat, and shoved the pilot through the canopy, where he landed on the ground with a thud. Shepard followed quickly, leaving the fire extinguisher wedged between a support and shard of the canopy.

He jumped down and helped joker up from the deck. He heard metal tearing behind them, _Shit, I thought we had more time_.

"Ah ha! I like it when my food runs away!"

Shepard spun around with his pistol in hand, and began shooting towards the cockpit. He saw the purple-white spider web showing that he hit the brute, but the alien wasn't his target.

On the fourth shot he hit the fire extinguisher. Fire retardant foam sprayed wildly through the cockpit, blinding the brute.

"Come on Joker," Shepard and the pilot started to run towards a nearby door, hoping to escape deeper in the station.

His hopes were nearly dashed as he heard a spike grenade stick to a nearby wall, and then explode. Joker stumbled and fell. In one smooth motion Shepard picked the pilot up and half dragged, half carried him to the door. He stepped inside and sealed the entrance using an ONI override code.

"Joker?" He asked the pilot, barely noticing the air being pumped into the hallway.

"Oh shit…" Joker felt his legs. "I can't feel my leg. Oooh… Fuck…" the pilots said that last statement as he looked down at his right leg.

Shepard looked to what had scared Joker. A piece of metal, likely from the spike grenade, was lodged directly in the center of the pilot's right thigh. Fresh blood stained his armor all around the wound.

"Biofoam," Shepard ordered the pilot, trying to keep him from panicking. He took the proffered canister from Joker. "Now, this might hurt." He pulled the metal shard from Joker's leg. Joker cried out in pain, both when he pulled the shard out, and when he sprayed the biofoam in.

Shepard ignored the pilot for a moment and brought the Biofoam canister up to the now fast bleeding wound, spraying the anti-septic sealing foam in the deep puncture wound. They didn't have time to wait the proscribed three minutes for it to set properly, so Shepard applied a little extra and stuck the bandage to the outside.

The brutes wouldn't be far behind, and a door would only hold them back for so long. Shepard manhandled Joker into a fireman's carry and set off down the corridor as fast as he could move, sealing the doors behind him. After only a few dozen yards down the corridor he had to set Joker down. The pilot groaned in pain as Shepard set him down.

"Ah! Watch it!" Joker looked down at his useless legs, "I have to say, that fire extinguisher, awesome, like straight out of a movie, but next time, could you use a grenade instead? More likely to kill 'em."

Shepard smiled, "I'll keep that in mind, and maybe next time I'll leave you behind so I don't have to listen to you bitch."

"Ha! You wish you could get rid of me this easy." Joker Grimaced, "Aw shit, you got any pseudo-morphine in that magic bag of happiness?" He pointed to the first aid kit attached to Shepard's side.

"Yeah sure, anything to shut you up," Shepard pulled out the syringe and stuck it in the designed slot for it on the armor's arm.

Shepard grabbed the back of Joker's armor and started dragging him through the corridors, heading towards the primary control room.

It seemed like they had lost their pursuers, or at the very least had left them far behind since they would have to break through a dozen or so sealed and armored doors. After another hundred feet of twists and turns they came across a small armory in a four way intersection. Judging from the signs, a pelican bay was to the right, and the main firing center wasn't too much farther to the left. Shepard grabbed a SMG and a shotgun off the rack and clipped them to his armor. Joker still had his sidearm, and that was probably all he was capable of firing at the moment.

He slapped the door controls leading to the fire control center. He was starting to feel tired, the adrenaline was wearing off, and he had dragged a two hundred plus pound soldier wearing armor through half the damn station. So it was understandable that he ended up backing straight into the barrel of some sort of gun.

"Shit."

Shepard took stock of the situation, if whoever had the gun pointed at the back of his neck was covenant, they would have shot by now. So that left another human. It could have been a survivor, but that seemed unlikely.

Whoever it was spoke in a voice that was distinctly female, and definitely not in English. So that left some long forgotten colony or a group of insane looters who had decided to cash in on the graveyards of reach. They didn't speak English which was exceptionally odd, as that was the trade language of the UNSC.

"Wha…? What's going on?" Joker stirred from his drug induced stupor.

The gun held to his back shifted slightly, and Shepard decided to go for it. He brought his head down to his chest and swung an arm back. The owner of the gun managed to hold onto the weapon, but the barrel was pointed in a harmless direction. Shepard flinched at the oddly high pitched report from the weapon, but continued spinning around and standing to his full height.

He found himself polarized facemask to polarized facemask with a lithe figure, who seemed to be wearing a skin tight enviro-suit. He didn't stop to think or admire the view but lowered his shoulder and charged. He picked up the unknown person and carried them into a wall. They loosened their grip on their gun and Shepard grabbed it out of their hands. He didn't exactly know how the oddly shaped gun worked, so instead he raised the gun up to smash it into the woman's head.

Instead he found himself unable to move his body, except for his eyes. To the side he saw a second woman, who seemed to be glowing with blue energy. _What the fuck_?

Then he found himself flying into a bulkhead. He slumped to the ground, stunned by the force of the blow. In front of him Joker managed to roll over on his stomach and pull his pistol. He fired a couple of rounds at the glowing woman; they bounced off a strange type of shield. The pistol was ripped out of the pilot's hands almost immediately. Joker drew his knife, but Shepard wasn't sure how much good that would do seeing as the pilot couldn't walk.

Shepard drew his own pistol, and took a tight grip. He was interrupted only by shouted orders over the intercom.

"Cease fire damnit! You'll draw the covenant right to you."

Shepard kept the pistol trained on the two unknown women, but he didn't fire. The one he tackled began to pick herself up and retrieve her weapon. The second glowing one seemed to be breathing heavily, but wasn't doing anything hostile. That's when he noticed the first one he attacked, wasn't human, however, she wasn't exactly yelling about 'feasting on his bones' so he held his fire.

Shepard heard Joker speak up from his position on the ground. "Who the hell just said cease… cea…" The pilot passed out. Shepard nearly hit himself; the morphine would be wearing off. The plug might still be in place but Joker would still be in some pretty serious pain.

That was the point where Shepard heard the heavy footfalls of brutes jogging down the hallway. "The pack will feast upon their bones!"

"Aw fuck…"

ooooooo

Tali'Zorah turned a corner with her shotgun and a tech mine at the ready, and found yet another empty corridor. After fighting those aliens she had expected to run into them again. Liara followed close behind, the faint glowing blue of a readied biotic power at her fingertips.

"Whoever is controlling the station seems to have our best interests in mind." Liara remarked.

Tali wasn't so sure, the way that door had slammed shut on that monstrous alien… She shuddered just thinking about it. "Then why haven't they tried to contact us? They obviously control the rest of the station." Another large cargo door opened to their right, revealing more dead bodies of different types. There where the green and black armored ones that matched the station around them, the defenders. Then there where the attackers, part of the same aliens that had attacked them earlier, they wore generally bright and shiny colors, made with no attempt at subtlety.

A new body was in among the corpses of reptilian aliens and short monkey-like aliens. "Liara, look here," The scientist came over to look at the find. It looked more like an aquatic predator, and had four separate mandibles, all covered in red armor.

"By the goddess, it's at least as big as a krogan." Liara remarked while examining the body.

"Or that thing we ran into earlier." Tali commented darkly.

Liara ignored the comment and continued on excitedly, "Look at the bodies of the defender's around it. It looks like they swarmed this one."

"I don't really want to look at the bodies; I want to get off this station." Tali could feel the hysteria creeping into her voice.

"We will, but we need to find a transport with FTL, maybe a com buoy to contact the citadel." Liara tried to reassure her. It didn't help that the scientist continued to examine the dead body.

"And how the hell will messing with that dead… thing, help us do that?" Tali let out an exasperated sigh and stalked off to the other side of the room, not bothering to listen to Liara's reply.

She sat down on the edge of a stand of shrubbery, it was all dead, but crackled as she sat down. She felt something under her, and leaned over to pull it out. It appeared to be some sort of data pad, pretty basic, no holographic interface, just a touchpad. Tali idly tapped a few keys. The small device lit up, so she used her omni-tool to try and interface with its wireless antenna.

What she found was disappointing, there was only one small text file on the device. Tali brought it up on the display, of course she couldn't read it, but something might be useful. It started out with a few lines of text, probably the equivalent of an extranet address, followed by several paragraphs of explanation, and a closing.

Tali sighed and stood up, leaning on a small square and empty pedestal, staring at the unknown data pad. She nearly jumped out of her suit when her omni-tool activated on its own and began flickering erratically. She jumped back, but her omni-tool was still working with a life of its own. Tali frantically tried to shut it off. Instead of doing anything she tried to make it do, a simple waiting icon appeared.

"Come on you bosh'tet!" Tali yelled at her omni-tool. Liara noticed her discomfort, and came over to see what was going on. The scientist couldn't do much to help, she wasn't as experienced with hacking computer systems as Tali, and Tali's firewalls had done absolutely nothing against this intrusion.

A small bar began to progress across the screen of Tali's omni-tool, labeled 'download in progress'.

As soon as the bar filled her omni-tool returned to normal. Every last bit of data on her omni-tool had been copied and downloaded to whatever computer system was in control of this station. Most of it was basic programs and data on the Geth, and a small terse 'guide to council space' written by another quarian returning from pilgrimage. The only thing she was worried about was the list of ships making up the migrant fleet, and the small description of each. Tali hoped her carelessness didn't just endanger the fleet.

"What could have done that to your omni-tool? Could it have been the people controlling the doors?" Liara was looking warily at the now faintly glowing pedestal.

"No, no organic could hack through an unfamiliar system like that. I think… I think we're dealing with an AI, maybe left aboard this station when the defenders were overrun. Maybe…" Tali paused to look around at the battle damaged walls. "Maybe it sees us as different than the attackers." She looked at the bodies of the defenders noting how they had a very similar body style to batarians, and actually weren't that different from quarians or asari at that. "Or maybe it has mistaken us for defenders and is attempting to help us out."

Liara looked shocked, "An AI, I thought AIs generally hated organics. Do you think these other races were attacking because the defenders had an AI?"

Tali started wringing her hands nervously. "Maybe, but the only problem is, with the data from my omni-tool it might not see us as allies anymore. It could try and kill us instead."

Almost on cue, the doors leading into the room slammed shut. The air and gravity stayed on for now, Tali was grateful for that. The two of them sat down and waited, there was not much else to do.

"Crap, I'm hungry." Liara reached for her pack, only to find that she had lost it somewhere along the way.

Tali checked her own small backpack, and the various pockets strewn about her person. If she stretched it out she actually had about two month's worth of dehydrated and compressed nutrient paste. She didn't think it would be wise to mention that to the scientist. "Maybe one of them had some rations of some kind?"

The asari looked dejectedly at the bodies around them. She didn't respond after a few moments though she cocked her head to the side, as if listening to something. Tali turned up the gain on her suits exterior microphone. At first she didn't hear anything, then the unmistakable sound of a station door opening, or shutting, then another one, closer this time.

Tali grabbed her shotgun and took up a position at the door nearest the sounds. She stood back a ways, partially hidden by a railing.

A loud sound, like someone dragging something heavy came from the door. It stopped, and soon after the door opened.

Tali kept still, watching. A figure was crouched near the edge of the door, by a keypad. It was one of the defenders, except it wore solid black armor. It was dragging a body by the armpits. The body wore armor similar to the other defenders. She froze up. Tali didn't call out or try and stop the thing. She just stood there until the person backed right up into the barrel of her shotgun.

That knocked her out of her shocked state. She took a tighter grip on her weapon. "Stop, I don't know who you are or if you can understand me, but don't move." She poked her gun harder into the alien's back to emphasize her point.

Another voice, this time from the apparently not quite dead body, spoke. Tali started to step back half a pace.

The alien in front of her whipped around. She pulled the trigger out of reflex, but the shot passed harmlessly by. The blank face of a helmet met her eyes briefly. In the next moment she found herself hitting a wall… hard.

She heard the sounds of several gunshots, then someone shouting, and then, nothing. Tali slowly opened her eyes and came to her feet. There was something of a standoff. The first alien had a pistol aimed at her and Liara, while the asari was shimmering with biotic power. Tali bent over and picked up her shotgun. The alien appeared to be glancing back and forth between her and Liara.

Tali was about to say something, or put down her gun to try and see if these people had some way off the station, when she heard something. The blood in her veins turned to ice as she recognized the deep guttural tones of one of the monstrous aliens. The black armored defender noticed them at the same time.

He turned away from Tali and Liara, picking up some sort of rifle from the ground. The soldier looked back at them, and gestured to the door. Then he took cover and aimed his gun into the now open corridor, oblivious to her shotgun pointed at his back.

Tali looked at Liara, "I guess we should help them. Compared to those others he seems almost friendly."

"I agree, at least they seem capable of reason." The scientist bent down to check on the wounded alien, who seemed to be passed out on the floor. The green armored man had a hole in his leg, filled with some sort of greenish yellow foam. It was starting to dissolve and come apart under Liara's touch.

Tali turned away from the scientist and the wounded, instead taking up a position in cover near the first alien. She readied a tech mine, the same one she had used earlier. The alien did the same with several small metal spheres, probably grenades.

An explosion came from down the corridor, to the far right of the door. A fragment of door went flying across their field of fire, followed by several of the monsters. Tali threw her tech mine into their midst. To her dismay only a few of them lost their tech armor. The others seemed mostly unaffected. The alien to her side threw several grenades into their midst. The rest of the half dozen lost their armor as well.

Tali and the alien began firing at the survivors. They were extraordinarily tough, taking multiple shotgun blasts, or long bursts from the alien's rifle. Tali fired the last shot from her current heat sink and ejected it. The alien reloaded his rifle as well. She peeked back over cover; almost immediately she wished she hadn't.

A massive alien wearing an ornate headdress and wielding some sort of giant hammer stood there. Its shields glowed a brilliant white. It gripped its hammer two handed and charged straight at them.


	3. Chapter 3

Captain Nikolai Mikhaelovich of the prowler _To Kill a Mockingbird_ sipped on his caffeinated drink. It definitely wasn't good enough to be called coffee, but it was strong, and that was something he needed right now. A routine patrol on the edge of the remaining inner colonies, looking for covenant activity. Most of the remaining ships stationed above the last colonies had been recalled to earth, a pittance had been left at the half dozen remaining worlds. His prowler and the corvette _Lady Luck_ were the only two ships stationed at the colony of Shanxi.

With a sigh Nikolai turned to the crewman operating the ships sensors, "So, what exactly did you wake me up for?"

The crewman, a lieutenant by the name of Richard Hall, replied the question, "Looks like a gravitic anomaly, similar to a slipspace rupture, but without all the exotic radiation. We should be coming into lidar range soon." The lieutenant punched in a command on his console and a holographic display lit up, showing an object.

"What exactly am I looking at?"

It was massive, blue, and glowing. Shaped like a tuning fork. Strangely enough a pair of rings rotated back and forth across its core.

"I don't know… maybe a forerunner artifact, like from that briefing we got from the higher ups about a month back?" The lieutenant touched a few controls and the view zoomed in.

Nikolai sipped his drink again, "Lieutenant, are those rings starting to spin faster?"

"Uh… Yes sir! Oh shit, ships coming out of the structure. No match to known covenant profiles."

Nikolai sighed and strapped into the command chair, "Helmsman, keep us as quiet as you can. Lieutenant, launch a probe towards the relic, and implement the Cole protocol. This is going to get interesting."

ooooooo

Shepard saw the chieftain activate his overshields. He reacted on instinct, diving to the side and tackling his alien ally out of the way. The gravity hammer impacted behind them, sending them flying into the side of the corridor. If he had more time to think, he would have shook his head at having an alien 'ally'.

_Damn it, just a few dozen feet and we would have had this wrapped up_. He stood up and fired at the chieftain. The bullets bounced harmlessly off his overpowered shield.

The brute was highly overconfident, obviously wanting to stretch out his moment of glory. Shepard ducked a swing from the butt of the hammer, and rolled into the corridor beyond.

The brute brought his hammer up lazily, "I will enjoy making you suffer!"

"Don't you know? It's not polite to play with your food." Shepard threw his empty MA5C at the chieftain, hitting him in the head, breaking his line of sight. He used the small distraction to pick up a needler off the ground. He sent a wave of pink projectiles arcing towards the chieftain, unfortunately each one exploded on contact, not finding purchase in the brute's power armor.

The brute laughed at the attack, and took what looked like a few practice swings with his hammer.

A pair of shotgun blasts from the alien hit the chieftain, causing the brute to stumble. He turned around and roared at the alien. Shepard took the opportunity to pull his pistol and drilled several rounds into the brute's head. It slumped over, dead.

Shepard walked over to the fallen brute. He put his hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths to try and calm his rapid breathing. The alien walked up as well, her shotgun was still aimed at the dead brute.

"It's dead, don't worry," Shepard assured her even though he knew she wouldn't understand him. He indicated his nameplate with his hand. "I'm Commander John Shepard."

The alien looked at him for a minute before figuring out what he meant. She replied by saying something that sounded like gibberish to Shepard, he only caught the beginning 'Talizor-something'

Shepard depolarized his visor and offered a hand to the alien, "thanks." She seemed hesitant but took it in a surprisingly firm grip.

Shepard released her hand and walked back into the control room. He was moderately surprised to find the other alien crouched over joker, applying some sort of salve to his wound.

Shepard didn't know what it was, but the alien obviously thought it would help the pilot's injury. Still, he pulled out his biofoam canister and crouched down next to the pilot as well, only to find something a lot better than biofoam already in the wound. Whatever gel the alien had spread in the wounds seemed to be actually healing the wound. The blood had mostly stopped flowing; Shepard could see the bone of Joker's leg and the shattered bits of it from where the spike of metal had hit it.

The flesh inside the wound was literally knitting itself together. The alien seemed to know what she was doing. Shepard left his med kit with her; hopefully Joker would live, and once they got back to UNSC space the doctors might be able to give him his leg back. He stood up and walked to the hidden main control console, aware of both alien's eyes on him.

Most models of ODPs, at least those with a super-MAC, were designed to be operated by an AI, normally a dumb AI. The majority of the 'crew' were assigned to help repel boarders, damage control, or help coordinate the fleets and fighter defenses. In direct combat with the enemy, the station could be controlled solely by an AI, though a dumb AI would need human oversight.

Shepard shook his head at the overly spacious control room. Plants, long dead, lined the room. In one of those planters was a slightly hidden handle. He pulled it, and out folded an actual control panel, just next to the AI holographic projector.

It was just an oversized keyboard and a touchscreen. Using a MAC gun manually was a very precise operation. A manual control joystick was something out of popular fiction.

Soon he located the systems controlling the backup reactor, and he started the emergency MAC charge sequence with his ONI override code, or he tried to. The system locked him out, and the holopad flashed and materialized into the avatar of an AI.

"Ah ah ah," the AI scolded him. The avatar was of a Greek appearance, like a lot of AIs, dumb and smart. 'She' wore a form fitting toga, sandals and a helmet that appeared more roman than Greek. It also carried a bow in its right hand. "I can't let you do that Dave."

_Uh oh_, thought Shepard having seen the old movie she had referenced, out loud he said something else entirely, "Uh... who are you?"

"Me? Well... how nice of you to ask, most spooks say stuff like 'AI do this, AI do that' Inconsiderate assholes." She stuck out her tongue like a petulant child.

The shotgun wielding alien walked over at this point, her shotgun very obviously pointed at the holopad. The alien gave Shepard a look that could have been interpreted as 'are you insane?' For her part, the AI just ignored the alien.

"Sorry, I don't think I caught your name?" Shepard started to get worried. This AI was obviously rampant, but maybe he could try and convince it to shoot the cruiser outside. At least then the _Midnight Dreary_ could safely return to earth. Hopefully it wasn't like the rampant AIs of fiction, who only seemed to exist to kill their creators.

"Oh, right I'm UNSC 'Smart' AI 0147-01 Artemis, though I liked 'Artemis' or 'the ol' sunny bitch' better than my full name. I'd shake your hand, but this stupid bow is in the way!" The avatar shook the 'hand' holding the bow as if it could shake it off.

Shepard smiled a little at the AI's antics, "Ok, uh... my name is..."

"Commander John Shepard, UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, section I, assigned as executive officer of the prowler _Midnight Dreary_. That right?" The AI looked at him expectantly.

"Yeah, so why can't I charge and fire the MAC gun?" Shepard raised an eyebrow, "Did I not ask nicely enough?"

The AI cocked her head to the side. "Maybe, maybe not." A small chime sounded, identical to something one would hear from an oven when it was done cooking. "Cookies are done!"

Shepard decided right there that this AI truly was insane. _Maybe if I cut her control wires to the console I could get the station to fire_.

He was interrupted from his thoughts as the AI started talking in some sort of alien gibberish. The shotgun wielding alien jumped as if startled and replied with more gibberish.

"A-ha! It works." The AI let out a squeal and seemed to prance around her little projector space.

Shepard sighed and face palmed. The alien stood there looking extremely confused before saying something in her language.

"Oh, she says she hasn't ever heard of an AI that behaves as erratically as I do. She also says your race must be stupid for programming an AI like me." Artemis stopped dancing and smiled at Shepard.

Shepard sighed again, deeper this time. "I don't think I have either. Oh well, I don't suppose you'd give me a copy of that translator would you?"

"How much?" The AI smiled sweetly.

"What!"

"You heard me, how much do you want to give me for a translator?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow, "You know, I think I left my wallet in my other suit."

The AI pouted and crossed her arms, which looked rather awkward the way the bow was programmed. Then she snapped her fingers, "I've got it! I want a new avatar."

"Uh, well..." Shepard rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of something. "I can't program you a new one, but if you help me destroy that cruiser and get back to earth before the covenant glass it I'll try my hardest to convince a computer tech to do that for you."

Something changed in the AI, her appearance immediately red shifted, and her face took on an extremely angry expression. "Did you just say the covenant are going to glass earth?"

"A small fleet slipped in with one of their hierarchs a bit less than a month ago. We managed to stop them, but the last assault carrier fled into slipspace with one of our frigates in pursuit. That broke the floodgates, ships have been arriving at earth for the past three weeks. The fleet and ODPs managed to take out a lot of them. And apparently some sort of civil war took out a lot more, but there were too many of them, the home fleet was down to two dozen vessels when we left. The only thing that's been saving us is the fact that they're more interested in some sort of forerunner ruin than in glassing earth." Shepard took a deep breath. Even the condensed version was pretty long.

"So why are you here? Running away?" The AI asked, still glowing red.

"No, we're here to save earth and the remaining colonies. The frigate that followed the assault carrier found some sort of forerunner structure. Apparently it was a galaxy destroying super weapon at the center of the covenant religion. The crew of the frigate convinced the elites that they were a part of a mass suicide cult and they stopped the brutes and prophets from activating the weapon. The only thing is what they found on earth is some sort of master control. The survivors of that frigate, and the elites know what we need to do to stop the covenant from destroying the galaxy. So that cruiser needs to die before our ship can flee to slipspace."

The AI closed her eyes in thought while her color slowly faded to blue. "Okay I'll help, if earth is threatened, then these covenant bastards need to die." Artemis closed her eyes, "Initializing charging sequence. Bringing backup reactors to full power. Charging coils, estimated time of complete charge, fifteen minutes."

Shepard glanced down at the small computer display on his left wrist. 'Downloading translation protocol v1.7.02' the loading bar began its slow trek across the screen.

An orange hologram sprang to life on the alien's wrist, apparently an advanced version of his own combat computer.

Shepard heard a small beep. The translator had finished. He turned to the alien and took a deep breath. "Can you understand me?"

She whipped around to face him, "How in the name of the ancestors did you manage to get a translator working so fast?"

Shepard smiled, "Nice to meet you too."

"Oh, I... right... you can call me Tali. Thanks for saving me from that thing I just froze up when it charged. I... Keelah, I owe you one." The alien wrung her hands nervously.

Shepard was extremely surprised at the almost human behavior. He was expecting something more, well, alien, from an alien.

"You can call me Shepard, and you helped me take the bastard down, let's call it even eh?" He turned to see the other alien walk up dragging Joker along with that glowing blue effect surrounding her.

"Your comrade will live, though medi-gel will not heal his spine."

"Hey commander, who knew aliens could be hot? And on our side. I think my plumbing still works, I tell you what; if I could still use my legs-"

"Joker, don't finish that sentence." Shepard rolled his eyes at the pilot. He turned and addressed the aliens, "I don't really know who you are or why you are on this station, but thank you for helping us."

The alien who helped Joker took off her helmet, revealing a blue and very human looking face. Along with some strange fleshy ridges along the top of her head. "My name is Liara, and I must confess though I am grateful you fought those beasts, we didn't have much of a choice in the matter. They weren't very interested in talking."

Shepard smirked, "The covenant aren't big on the talking side of things, they prefer to shoot first an-"

Artemis interrupted them before he could explain further, "Alert, enemy boarding parties have detected power buildup. They are converging on this location. You need to hold this location for another twelve minutes before the gun can fire." A countdown appeared, replacing her avatar.

"Hell," Shepard started striding purposefully to the nearest arms locker. "I don't suppose you'll help us? If we can shoot down that cruiser our vessel can pick us up."

"Where would we go? Your planet is destroyed." The blue alien reminded him.

"Reach wasn't our only world, but we'll make them pay dearly for it soon enough." Shepard called back over his shoulder. He reached the locker and began pulling weapons out. Once he ran out of room on his magnetic plates he started stacking them like firewood in his arms. He brought them back into the control room and set them out on the floor.

Two shotguns, three BR55 battle rifles a MA5C assault rifle, four M7 SMGs, and six pistols, along with plenty of spare ammo and a pair of grenades.

He found Joker had already pulled himself behind the planter with the hidden panel. Shepard handed him one of the battle rifles and several spare clips. His position would give them good fire support. He offered a SMG and a BR to each of the aliens, but they refused, drawing their own weapons. A shotgun and some sort of pistol respectively. He picked up the MA5C and a BR, placing them on his back. He grabbed more ammo for his sidearm and finally picked up a shotgun, pumping a round into the chamber as he did

"Covenant forces an estimated one minute from reaching this command center." Artemis provided a helpful update.

Shepard reached down and picked up a few plasma pistols from the ground. He test fired each at the ground, and seeing the looks from the aliens he tossed each of them one. Shepard pointed the weapon at the door and demonstrated firing a charged shot.

After that he bunkered in, indicating where his two alien allies should take cover. It wasn't long before he heard the strange shrieks made by Jackals, and the nervous squeaky conversation of a group of grunts. He placed his shotgun down beside him and drew the BR. Before the aliens came into his line of view Liara started firing at them, being further up and to the left. _Sloppy of me_, he though to himself, _Should have had them let the enemy all get into our sight before opening fire_.

Liara ducked back into cover as a hail of plasma and needler rounds came flying from the covenant troops. Shepard took note of when the sounds of weapons fire came vs. when the plasma rounds came around the corner. He primed a frag grenade and threw it against the far wall. It bounced back around the corner. A few high pitched shrieks told him that he would get at least a few of them. The explosion and flying bodies told him that he was right.

"Forward you fools! Kill the humans!" A brute yelled. Probably the leader of this little pack.

A bare three grunts and two jackals came around the corner, the brute following close behind. This time the alien held her fire. The jackals were being cautious this time, their shields were already pointed and they were hunched down ready to fire. Three quick bursts and the grunts fell behind them. The brute fired its spiker at Shepard so he ducked down behind his cover, dropping his BR and picking up his shotgun.

He took a risk to peek back up. The shotgun wielding alien, Tali, was waiting for the Jackals to inch forward and expose their backs to her. Unfortunately for her plan the brute was right behind them.

Shepard brought his shotgun up; at this range the spread was only a few inches. The shotgun was one of the few weapons effective against the covenant, even if it was only at short range. An eight gauge shell worth of buckshot was sent into the brute's chest armor. Its shields flared, so Shepard sent two more shells his way before ducking back into cover. A pitiful gurgle told him the brute was down. Two more weapon reports from the alien shotgun told him the rest of this group was down as well.

"Sound off! You two okay?" Shepard yelled out to his allies.

"I am fine Commander." Liara didn't seem too fazed by the battle.

"No contacts Shepard!" Tali wasn't quite as calm, but wasn't in hysterics either.

"Joker?" Shepard glanced back to the control console where he saw the barrel of a rifle poking out.

"Damn Shepard, you've got to let them get in here before I can shoot 'em."

"Liara, next time, wait for them to get in the kill zone before you open fire. Other than that you all did good." Shepard tried to look back for the countdown, but couldn't quite see the numbers, "Artemis, what's the time until firing?"

"Seven minutes remaining commander."

_Well, this will be a long day._


	4. Chapter 4

Captain Kuril, of the turian empire cruiser _Justice Bringer_, stood in the CIC of the ship, overlooking a galaxy map. A small blue circle showed the sector of space they were in. Technically an unknown sector. A group of pirates had activated the mass relay leading here. Unfortunately there wasn't a system at this end of the relay. Like the long lost Mu relay this one must have been blown out of its system by a supernova or some other celestial event.

"Launch our probes. See if you can locate those damn pirates. All crew are to remain at battle stations until further notice." Kuril mentally reviewed the forces at his disposal. Four frigates, his cruiser and the troops of the 41st suppression brigade loaded aboard an aging freighter. They had a limited number of FTL capable probes that would be sent to the nearest star systems to search for habitable planets or the like.

"Commander, probes have detected a ship only a few hundred kilometers away from the relay! The size of a large frigate, or light cruiser."

He fully expected the pirates to have gone to ground; a handful of aging frigates would be no match for a turian patrol fleet. He expected to spend several weeks searching this sector for the pirates, then to wipe them out when he inevitably located them. So he didn't expect the probe operator to have found something so soon after leaving the relay.

"Why didn't our own sensors detect it when we left the relay?"

The probe tech checked his readings before speaking up again, "It appears to be built for stealth, minimal heat emissions, no detectable kinetic barriers, and it's covered in some sort of radiation absorbing materiel. Its sheer luck that our probe was close enough to detect it."

Kuril felt a small trickle of fear at the small of his back. The pirates were either much more prepared than they had thought, or something else equally as bad was happening. The best course of action would be of course to destroy the vessel before it could do anything to hamper the fleet. "Tell the frigate group to intercept and destroy the ship."

He watched on the monitor as the frigates approached the unknown. After only a few seconds the stealth ship reacted to their presence, it began maneuvering and spinning around, strangely not to present a main gun to the enemy, but as if to present the side of the ship. It was maneuvering relatively well for a ship its size, the frigates fired a few shots, but it was already out of the way.

"Massive missile launch detected from the enemy vessel. Two hundred missiles heading towards lead frigates." The same probe controller only barely kept the emotion out of his voice.

Kuril felt that cold trickle turn into a block of ice as both frigates vanished under the cloud, their guardian systems unable to cope with the sheer number of missiles. The second pair of frigates began scoring hits, but the enemy vessel was tough. It appeared unarmed besides the missiles, but it sped towards the two frigates, obviously hoping to get within guardian laser range.

The captains of Kuril's frigates were only too happy to oblige. They charged as well, eager to avenge their fallen comrades. The enemy vessel continued to take hits, and yet even as it entered guardian range it still did not fire. _They're going to ram!_

His frigate commanders noticed as well, they were only a dozen kilometers apart when they began turning. The enemy ship would get close before they could maneuver away. Kuril watched with a clenched fist as the enemy ship knifed in between his two vessels.

He pounded that fist into the railing as not one, but both of his remaining frigates vanished from the display.

"Heavy fusion explosive detected captain," the probe tech informed him, too late to do anything to save his frigates. "Detecting survivors among the debris of frigate group one. There's also some debris from the enemy vessel."

"Begin recovery operations, I'll be in my quarters," Kuril released his grip on the railing and left the CIC.

ooooooo

Lt. Richard Hall floated in the black of space. One of the alien cruisers had gotten a lucky strike to the bridge of the _To Kill a Mockingbird_. The captain was dead, and he was now stranded in space. The XO of the prowler had obviously ordered a suicidal charge to preserve the Cole protocol. Hall had seen the explosion as they overloaded their fusion generator.

He could see the glittering debris of the first two ships. He had been surprised when the handful of missiles carried by their prowler had actually managed to destroy the enemy vessels. He was so used to seeing covenant vessels shrugging off enemy weapons fire that he had nearly shit himself when the enemy ships were blown apart.

Of course, then an enemy shot had struck the bridge sending him floating out among the wreckage. He didn't know if he had the guts to kill himself. He definitely didn't have a gun to make it quick, and he didn't fancy the cyanide capsule in his fake tooth. He knew it didn't really matter though. His suit had a slow leak; he would be dead long before the aliens picked him up.

Those were his last thoughts as he drifted off to sleep. He didn't notice the sudden bright lights as an alien shuttle approached him.

ooooooo

Liara switched out her heatsink for the fifth time for this battle alone. Her heatsinks were of the reusable kind, but they did need a long time to cool off before they could be used again. She was reduced to using still hot sinks for a shot or two before she needed to reload. The alien pistol Shepard had given her had run dry a long time ago. She had developed a migraine that left her biotics less powerful and unfocussed.

The fire from the alien named Shepard had slacked off; he seemed low on ammo as well. He was using a variety of captured alien weapons, some fired energy projectiles, and others superheated metal spikes. Yet even those were running out of ammo.

The bodies of smaller aliens clogged the doorway. They were sent in as little better than cannon fodder. The larger ones came in one or two at a time, only about eight of their bodies were spread out among the dead.

A few bullets whizzed by her head, tearing apart one of the bird-like aliens. Shepard had called them jackals. She waved a weary thanks to the injured soldier sitting up by the main computer. Liara picked up one of her discarded heatsinks and slotted it into her gun again, _Two shots, I'll need to make them count_.

Her gun was hot even through her encounter suit as she aimed in at an unarmored brute. The shot tore through its head dropping the last of this wave. A high pitched beeping came from her pistol, Liara looked down at the small readout, 'critical failure'. With a sigh she set the gun at the side of her suit and joined Shepard and Tali in picking weapons from the dead. Shepard picked up ammo for the spike rifle he had taken from a dead brute, Tali grabbed another alien pistol. Liara walked over and picked up a spiky pink weapon, and a couple blocks of pink crystal lying near it.

The black armored alien picked up what looked like a long purple rifle of some sort from a dead bird-alien. He also grabbed several arm bands from the same kind of alien. He handed them to her and Liara.

Each of the three put one on, and Shepard showed them a few buttons on the side of the band. He pressed them and the gauntlet sprang to life, a full fledged energy shield in from of him.

Liara mimicked his motions, when she heard a warning klaxon start blaring.

"Firing sequence initiated." Her eyes were drawn to motion outside. A metal ring of some kind was moving up the massive tower outside, which she assumed to be a barrel of the massive weapon. The ring reached the top, then accelerated down, vents opened up along the length of the weapon, and then a flash at the top, followed instantaneously by an explosion in space.

"We did it." Liara turned to face Shepard, the alien reached up to his helmet, de-polarizing it and activating his comm system. "_Midnight Dreary_, you are all clear. _Midnight Dreary_? Respond."

With her own communication system patched to Shepard's she heard the reply from their ship. It was extremely garbled, "Rog... ...at... und... threat by covenant seraphs... not... -ick you up... the captain sends his... ogies... repeat, we are under attack by..." The message cut out after that.

"Attention commander," The AI spoke up behind them. "Station sensors report radiation similar to a ship entering slipspace."

Liara looked at the floor downcast, as a wave of depression hit her. That meant there was no way off this station. Shepard's ship had left them behind; the alien's ship was blown apart. Their own ship was either destroyed or had fled. She would never get back to the citadel, never figure out what killed the Protheans, never even have a child.

She sat down, and buried her helmeted face in her hands. Still somewhat in shock. She didn't notice Shepard coming to sit next to her. "I'm sorry."

She wasn't expecting an apology, "What?"

"I should have gotten an extraction for you, or sent you to the hangar bays instead of asking you to stay and help. I thought our ship would be able to pick us up, I'm sorry they couldn't."

"You mean you aren't mad that you were left behind?" Liara asked the alien, genuinely puzzled.

"I knew this was likely a one way trip, but it needed to be done. The survival of my species is at stake, the people on that ship need to make it back to our homeworld. They might carry the secret that could end the war."

"Oh," Liara looked up at the alien's face, feeling embarrassed, "Now I feel selfish, I'm just an archaeologist, worried about getting back home and finishing my research, you're here fighting to save your entire species."

Shepard leaned back against a planter and looked up at the planet slowly coming into view of one of the windows. "Yeah... sometimes it's hard to believe all that humanity has lost in this war."

"Hey! If you two are done feeling sorry for yourself, the nice AI lady here says more brutes are on the way!" The human known as Joker called out.

Liara saw a small smile spread across the human's face. "Well, you heard him, we've got at least one last fight left in us."

She just shook her head, "What's the point? Why not give up?"

In a heartbeat she found herself picked up by her shoulders and staring into the human's face. "Don't ever give up, you hear me? That was the last thing my father said to me before he locked me and my mom in an off world transport. Don't. Ever. Give. Up. Even if all hope is lost, we fight just to prove that we were alive, to prove that we were here." With that the man released her, and walked back to his position near the door.

Liara looked down at her captured weapon, and looked around the command center at the dead defenders, who had apparently died to the last to defend this station the first time. She made up her mind and walked over to her position by the doorway, giving a nod to Shepard and Tali.

Liara turned back to the doorway, hearing the distant sounds of brutes, and idly wished she could see her mother one last time.

ooooooo

Nihlus, council specter and protégé to the living legend Saren Arterius, woke with a start from his sleeper pod. He was travelling in a turian spec ops frigate investigating a lead on a missing asari scientist for his mentor. He opened his eyes and found one of the naval troopers waiting for him. "What is it?"

"The captain just received a call for aid from the cruiser _Justice Bringer_. They were attacked by an unknown alien force near a previously unknown mass relay as they were chasing pirates." The trooper gave him the quick explanation, "The captain wishes to go to their aid and wanted orders."

To Nihlus, that explanation sounded suspiciously like the beginning of the rachni wars from history so long ago. "Of course, if he feels it is important we should head there immediately."

Knowing he wouldn't get any sleep Nihlus headed to the frigate's small mess hall.

Several hours later they arrived at the mass relay. Nihlus was standing on the bridge, looking out at an assembled turian fleet. The brass commanding the turian military had apparently decided on a show of force strategy. No less than ten heavy cruisers and forty accompanying frigates had answered the call. More impressive was the mighty dreadnaught at the center of the formation. A fleet like this had only very rarely been called upon since the end of the krogan rebellions.

The fleet was holding position around the end of the relay. A small message popped up flagged for Nihlus.

"Specter Nihlus, your presence has been requested on the _Void Hunter_." With that the message ended.

Already the admiral in charge of this expedition had called for him. He sighed and consigned himself for a round of back patting and strutting of higher ups as they congratulated each other on a successful conquest, even before it began. At least as a specter he could get away without playing a game of polish the gizzard.

Nihlus followed the same trooper who woke him up to the shuttle bay.

It was a mostly uneventful shuttle ride to the _Void Hunter_. The only surprise was when he arrived. It looked like the top brass was actually waiting for him in the _Hunter_'s flight deck. As he stepped out he greeted them in the traditional turian manner for soldiers of different branches of the military and of equal rank. He could tell the general in charge of the ground forces seemed a bit miffed at the equal greeting rather than being seen as a superior. The admiral, however, took it in stride.

Nihlus assumed the admiral had worked with a specter before. His thoughts were confirmed as the admiral started speaking.

"It's good to finally meet you, my little brother the specter speaks about you constantly. He says you are almost as good of an agent as he is." That suggested the admiral was related to Saren, Nihlus didn't know any other turian specters that well. "But we can't sit around here and reminisce about former missions we have a planet to conquer. Our probes have found the world the enemy vessel came from. We've even managed to get an early translator working it took a few days of monitoring broadcasts, but it works, unfortunately the one enemy combatant we've captured is being very tight lipped. We would like to get an idea of the defenses surrounding the world, but he won't say a word beyond his name and serial number. We even had to put him on suicide watch after we found a poison capsule in his tooth."

Nihlus knew where this was going, citadel regulations were strict regarding prisoners of war, but as a specter he would be above those laws. "Well then, it sounds like I might have a few talents you have need of. Speak no further; just point me to his cell."

The admiral performed the turian equivalent of a smile. The general didn't seem too pleased with the situation, and seemed to ignore what he just said. He was probably one of those types who hated the idea of agents above the law.

"Of course, you are a man of action I see," The admiral gestured to an aide, "Show the good specter to the prisoner's cell."

After he was out of sight he shook his head, the admiral struck him as slightly corrupt, too much like a slimy merchant in the bowels of the wards, and not much like a warrior. He wondered how Saren could actually be related to such filth. He knew the hunter class of dreadnaught quite well, having served on one in his early military service. He found himself travelling not the standard brig, but to the high security wing. The aide brought him to a small armored door. Only one guard stood outside, but as the door opened he saw two guards inside, in a lone chair positioned ominously above the drain sat a creature. Its face had a few bruises and cuts where its previous interrogators had gotten a little rough.

"Leave," He ordered the two guards in the room with his best specter voice, while making sure his translator was updated. He grabbed the alien's head and examined the wounds. "Amateurs."

"Ensign Richard Hall, serial number-"

"Cut the crap," Nihlus interrupted, "I'm sure you think you're being very brave and whatnot, trying not to give out military secrets. But the fact of the matter is, we know where your world is. If you want to avoid any unnecessary casualties, you'll confirm for me what defenses your world has."

Nihlus expected stoic silence, maybe just a repetition, but he didn't expect cold mirthless laughter.

"Ha! What is this? Good cop, bad cop?" The alien rolled his eyes. "Pathetic."

Nihlus walked around the human, getting behind him in what was normally a psychologically disturbing zone for most creatures. The alien apparently knew what he was doing and tilted his head back and imitated snoring.

"Oh, very cute," Nihlus remarked, trying to catch the prisoner off guard.

"Uh huh, you can just stop this little charade, I'm not going to tell you where our forces are, I'm not going to tell you how badly they can kick your ass, the only thing I will tell you is a friendly warning in thanks for the free food." He gestured to several empty tubes of asari nutrient paste. "If you see a big purple ship of any kind, just run away, run far away."

Nihlus sighed and consigned himself to a long interrogation.

ooooooo

Two hours later, and Nihlus still had nothing to show for it. After that brief bit, he couldn't get a word more out of the prisoner, even when he resorted to physical torture, just to see if he would say anything else.

He walked to the admiral's briefing room to make a report, he found several other officers already there, the captains of the cruisers surrounding the flagship most likely, along with the general and a few other army officers.

Nihlus saluted, figuring the admiral would appreciate the gesture. "Admiral, I regret to inform you that getting anything out of the prisoner will take much longer than I had anticipated, possibly a few days. I did manage to get him to say something other than his name and rank though. He said it was a friendly warning, about some sort of big purple ship. Nonsense I'm sure, but it was the only other thing he said."

Most of the officers laughed at that statement, Nihlus noted one captain did not join in with the others, and marked him down mentally.

The admiral quieted his underlings by standing up from his seat. "No matter, from our probe sweeps we have plenty of firepower to subdue this planet. Please specter, take a seat, I'm sure a briefing isn't on your to do list, but we would value any input you have."

Nihlus took an open seat next to the captain he noticed earlier, a man named Kuril. The holographic projector came to life, showing an image of the planet in the center of the room. It rotated slowly to show all the officers each view of the planet.

One of them stood up to begin the briefing. Nihlus found he didn't have to interject, after all these people had experience planning a space battle, while he had none. He did notice that they glossed over the part where several hundred civilian spacecraft were seen fleeing the planet below. Which suggested they had warning, and at the very least colonies other than this planet. The admiral assumed this was their home planet, and Nihlus didn't see much to contradict him. Several large cities sat on the planet's one continent, a massive orbital elevator rose from the largest.

All in all it pointed to this being at least a primary population center. One difference in viewpoint Nihlus had with the admiral, was that he thought their military would crumble quickly in the face of orbital superiority, after interrogating the prisoner he knew that a foolhardy assumption. Another was regarding the rather pathetic looking cruiser sitting lone sentinel over the planet. The general was convinced the cruiser was their most powerful ship, and at best they had more frigates like the stealth ship hidden on the planet itself. The admiral thought they were new to space, and that the mass relay was their first significant discovery other than a handful of underdeveloped colonies.

After seeing footage of the battle at relay 314, Nihlus knew that assumption to be wrong as well. The only one that seemed to share his sentiments was the captain commanding that cruiser. The specter knew something was off; this battle was likely to be a lot harder fought than the brass anticipated.

After the briefing he pulled captain Kuril aside. "Captain, tell me honestly what do you think about this plan?"

Kuril glanced side to side, making sure his superiors weren't watching, "Honestly, it's a sucker punch waiting to happen. If they have forty or so of those frigates, and play them right. Massed missiles could take out this entire fleet, _Void Hunter_ and all." The captain shook his head, "That cruiser that they're so quick to write off looks more like a floating cannon than a ship. And that survivor we picked up? He disarmed one of the guards and shot the other one twice, before cracking the pilot's face plate. If the co-pilot on that shuttle had been a little slower he would have probably gotten away."

Nihlus was shocked, that sort of performance was something an asari commando might be able to do. The man in the prison bay didn't exactly scream special forces. "Are your crew okay?"

"Yeah, the doctor says they'll make a full recovery, but if the soldiers on that planet are half as well trained and a quarter as determined our troops will be in for a little stroll through hell."

"Thanks for your time commander," Before the captain left he added, "Good luck, whatever happens."


	5. Chapter 5

_AN: Fixed that pesky incomplete sentence..._

Shepard fired his pilfered spiker at a charging brute, the foot long superheated spikes didn't seem to do all that much to the alien. The weapon ran dry before the brute collapsed. The thing almost hit him when a wave of green plasma slammed into the beast and dropped it. Shepard waved his thanks to the alien, Tali; she was fighting as hard as any marine.

He had even seen her finish off a brute with a combat knife, something only the truly brave or foolish ever attempted. He never thought he would say this, but he was damn glad those two aliens were fighting by his side through this.

A blue flash from his side and three jackals slammed into the far bulkhead hard enough to break bone. That was the other alien, Liara, making her presence felt. She had seemed relatively quiet during the whole affair, like she had been in conflict before, and this was another day at the job. He didn't know, maybe she was just terrified into silence. A large crate flew into a grunt, smashing it into a pulp. Or maybe not.

Shepard threw his last grenade at a brute. It bounced off its armor and exploded in the big ape's face. He reloaded the spiker and brought it up, finishing the brute off with an assist from Liara.

This was the second group since they destroyed the covenant cruiser. There couldn't be that many left on the station. Shepard contacted Artemis, "So, nice AI lady, now that the covenant cruiser is gone, are there any ships with a functioning slipspace drive in the debris field?"

"No, not really," The way the AI answered told him there was at least one, but there was probably a pretty big catch along with it. "The Halcyon class _Dawn Under Heaven_ is still relatively intact, thrusters, weapons, and the like. There's only a couple little problems."

Shepard looked over at Tali and Liara, who were both listening intently to the conversation. "So, what are the problems?"

"Well... the first is that almost all the control centers have been badly damaged, and the ship is woefully lacking in oxygen supplies. You would need an AI to pilot it." He couldn't see it from where he stood, but he could easily picture it the far too innocent look on her avatar's face.

Joker interrupted, "Oh come on, I go through all this trouble of losing my legs, and I don't even get to fly us out of here? That's bull."

Shepard ignored the pilot, "Do you not want to help save earth Artemis? Even an aging and damaged cruiser could make a difference if the covenant are attacking earth." Shepard remembered the way the obviously rampant AI reacted when he mentioned earth earlier; he was hoping to convince her to pilot the vessel for them.

The AI let out an exasperated sigh, "I'd have to leave all this behind, I'm networked between almost five dozen ship computers, I have so much room, and I'd have to leave all that behind... Well, if I can save earth, I suppose I can deal with it, get some payback against the covenant for killing my crew."

Liara looked back towards the AI's holopad, "Wait, I thought AIs were limited to a quantum blue box, and they couldn't transfer their programming."

"Except for the Geth..." the other alien, Tali, put in.

Shepard didn't know what the Geth were, but he knew that now was probably not the time to ask. "Let's save the technical questions for after we're off the station. Artemis, are there any pelicans left aboard intact enough to get us to the Dawn?"

"The Down Under was what the crew referred to her as in case you were wondering, and yes there should be a few. Most of my interior cameras from here to the docking bay have been destroyed by covenant forces, so I don-"

"In there, the ones who have killed our pack are hiding in that hole!"

Three massive brutes strode around the corner, all chieftains. Two of them held massive gravity hammers, but the third even larger one held a plasma cannon in his arms.

Shepard dropped his spiker and pulled his carbine out, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger. Several plasma rounds found their mark in the center of his chest plate. Shepard let out a cry of pain and slumped to the floor, clutching his chest.

He blinked his eyes and found himself being dragged away by Liara while the other kept the brutes from advancing by firing charge plasma round after charged plasma round at them. Even as he watched, one of the hammer chieftains overcharged its shields and ran forward to bring his hammer down on the group. He tried to yell out a warning, but it came out as more of a croak.

An orange blur came from behind them. The brute found itself smashing a stick against the ground, the head of the hammer fell to the side sparking and sputtering. An orange-gold figure stood between Shepard's group and the brute. That was the last thing Shepard saw as he slipped into unconsciousness.

ooooooo

Nihlus sat in his office aboard the spec ops frigate under his command. He had ordered the commander of the frigate to hang back with the army transports rather than get involved with the main assault force. Captain Kuril's cruiser was also assigned guard duty, likely as a punishment for losing four frigates at the start of what they were calling the 'relay 314 incident'. The alien prisoner had been transferred aboard his frigate as well.

Nihlus wasn't concerned with the alien at the moment; he had essentially outlived his usefulness. Nihlus simply didn't want to execute him out of hand, and he felt that the alien might be useful when the invasion began, or at least once they had won.

Instead Nihlus settled back to watch the invasion unfold on his special built holographic display. He was patched into fleet communications as well, so he could fulfill the role of observer.

The fifty ships of the primary fleet advanced on the planet in standard formation, the screening frigates up front, followed by the nine cruisers, all arranged in a cone with the dreadnaught _Void Hunter_ at the center, forming the giant barrel of a 'gun'. The formation was used by cautious admirals planning on engaging in an artillery duel with an opposing dreadnaught. The frigates and cruisers acting as a screen against enemy attack craft.

Nihlus shook his head; the admiral was very obviously planning a shock and awe tactic against the enemy. Possibly even orbital bombardment of military targets.

The enemy cruiser started moving, aligning for a shot. At this range Nihlus knew that even dreadnaughts generally didn't have a chance of hitting their targets. He was uncomfortably reminded of Captain Kuril's earlier assessment of a floating cannon.

The dreadnaught at the center of the turian fleet began firing its own cannon, while the rest of the ships began slow steady maneuvers, designed to give them the flexibility to move out of the way once the enemy ship started firing. From his display, all he saw were small name tags and firing arcs for each ship's main gun. He didn't notice it when a frigate and a cruiser disappeared from the display until the report came in from the fleet comm network.

"The bastards just took out two ships with a single shot."

Nihlus' attention was instantly drawn back to the screen. It looked like Kuril had been right. Another communication came over the system, "Unknown craft launching from planet surface, half the size of a standard frigate. Numbering fifty targets."

Nihlus hoped Kuril's prophetic powers were not extended to this group. The number of targets in his display tripled instantaneously.

Standard designation for frigates among the turian military included ships between one hundred and two hundred fifty meters long, light cruisers between two hundred and three hundred meters, and so on.

Comparatively tiny vessels such as those launching from the planet were only in common use among pirates, who couldn't afford larger, and the salarian STG who appreciated the speed and maneuverability they could coax out of such small craft. His own ship, a small insertion craft, not a true frigate was lumped in that same category, though it was designed by turians and not salarians. His ship was lightly armed with only a few disruptor torpedoes and guardian systems.

Nihlus sent a message to Kuril, "What do you make of this?" the reply wasn't long in coming.

"If I were in command of that force, assuming they have similar performance to the pirate ships I've fought before, I'd use them to delay our frigates while that gun cruiser sets up for another shot, probably at the dreadnaught, hmm... I see Admiral Korrus isn't as stupid as he looks, the _Void Hunter_ is moving out of their supposed range. On the other hand, that cruiser isn't moving to shoot again; those ships are moving away from the fleet..." Kuril made a small noise indicating he was thinking.

"They wouldn't leave their planet open to an assault would they? Flee to fight another day? Maybe, but unlikely…"

Nihlus turned his attention back to the screen as Kuril thought out the possible tactics their enemy could be using. The enemy cruiser suddenly disappeared from his tactical display.

"They fled to FTL?" Kuril sounded incredulous over the comm system. "Granted all I know about this species is one engagement, but my gut says they aren't running for good. We should be prepared."

On his screen the smaller ships came into range of the screening frigates. Disruptor torpedoes, missiles, and guardian lasers flew back and forth between the engaging vessels.

Nihlus couldn't see any of that from his display, but he could see several ships disappear from both formations. Three turian frigates died for only four of the regular vessels. Turian fighters disappeared from the display as soon as they came close to the enemy ships.

He manipulated his controls to bring up a display from a fighter's gun camera.

A sleek gray wing shape flew past the fighter, spitting kinetic rounds of some kind at everything nearby, fighters, torpedoes, frigates. It pulled a turn that reminded Nihlus more of a fighter than a frigate, the video feed cut then as the turian fighter was destroyed.

The screen shifted to an overview of the battle once more. The micro-frigate's numbers had thinned considerably as the cruisers joined the fight. After a few more moments of intense fighting the remaining enemy ships disengaged, only two dozen remaining of their number.

Twelve frigates, one cruiser, and half of the turian fighters deployed to the battle had been destroyed.

ooooooo

Shepard opened his eyes; all he saw was a blue blur outside his helmet. He began blinking rapidly to clear his vision. The blur resolved itself into a blue faced woman, a completely blue woman. His confusion evaporated almost immediately, the alien Liara sat over him, checking the burn wounds on his chest. He sat up to check them, strangely feeling almost no pain. Several nondescript white bandages were applied over his chest, the charred and melted plate, designed to be removed in this exact occasion, sat to his side. He noted with distaste the inner body suit was damaged, he couldn't do vacuum for any length of time, the helmet seals could technically keep him breathing, but cold and exposure would kill him quickly.

Of course Joker was under much the same problem, only he couldn't use his legs.

"What happened?" He asked the alien to his side.

"You were injured by the enemy's gun. If it were not for..." She paused for a minute, obviously trying to get the pronunciation right, "Odeg'Delus, all of us would likely be dead."

Shepard frowned, that sounded suspiciously like an Elite's name. Still he felt some measure of gratitude, he had only met these two roughly thirty minutes ago, but he had fought alongside them against extremely long odds, saving and being saved by them numerous times. Alien or no, that counted for something. He turned looking around for his mystery savior.

All feelings of gratitude vanished, the orange-gold figure of an elite zealot stood nearby, "You are fit to move human?"

Shepard felt a rush of emotion, hate, fear, and the flood of adrenaline accompanying them. His pistol cleared his holster before he could even register sending a signal to his hand. Almost automatically it came to center directly on the elite's head. The zealot for his part straightened out in surprise, making his aiming that much easier. Shepard pulled the trigger again and again. Nothing happened. His pistol was empty.

Shepard dropped the empty pistol and grabbed his knife, preparing to charge the zealot. A blue glow formed around him, and he found himself unable to move forward.

"Stop, he saved our lives from the brutes Shepard!" the blue alien pleaded with him, even as she held him still with her telekinesis.

Shepard found he could still speak through the effect, "Why, what does it matter if he saved our lives. He is a zealot! He killed thousands of people to get that armor, he needs to die!" Despite his words Liara stubbornly kept the field active.

Joker called out from his position not far away, battle rifle still cradled in his hands, "Commander he did save us, from getting smashed flat by gravity hammers, probably from getting eaten."

Shepard still felt the anger keenly; he turned as much as he could to face Joker. "And? You just want to forgive him?"

"No. I'd actually really like to tie him to a long rope behind a pelican and take him for a ride through a canyon. I'm just saying, they are on our side now."

The two unknown aliens looked at each other, obviously confused, but having the tact not to say anything, they looked at the hulking warrior, though Shepard couldn't see their faces

The ex-Covenant soldier spoke up in his own defense, "It is true, I killed many of your warriors during our campaigns, they fought well to the end. I make no apologies for my actions in war time; I followed the orders of my superiors. And now because they could not see the lies of the prophets in time, my soldiers aboard the _Unyielding Compromise_ are dead at the hands of the treacherous brutes."

"Followed orders! Followed orders?" Shepard scoffed, "I assume when you fed civilians to the jackals you were just following orders? Dishonorable bastard!"

The elite stiffened and drew his energy sword. He didn't ignite it, though Shepard could see it was a remarkable effort of self control. Being an ONI spook, he knew a few things about elite culture, dishonorable bastard was just about the worst insult he knew to call an elite.

The elite let out a grunt, which Shepard interpreted as a sigh, "It is true, as good as it is to have an honorable enemy to fight, the prophets ordered your extinction merely to hold on to their power, and their brute lackeys followed them to damnation. That is not an honorable fight."

Shepard knew he couldn't move to attack, so he kept talking, "The briefings weren't very specific, what exactly caused you guys to switch to our side?"

The zealot seemed taken aback by the question, "You mean you do not know?"

"That the bird is the word?" Joker cut in. At a look from Shepard, he let out a cheeky grin.

Shepard sighed and continued his questioning, "No, we don't, all we know is some sort of religious difference relating to a galactic scale superweapon."

The elite looked back and forth between them all. "You are the reclaimers, how can you not know that you are the children of the gods?"

Joker began to stutter inarticulately, obviously at a loss for a joke.

Shepard took the initiative before he could come up with one. "Reclaimers?"

"The forerunners, the gods… or I suppose those we once thought of as gods, they left their technology for your species. All of it is gene locked specifically to your race."

The field holding Shepard in place dissipated, but he was too interested in what the elite had said to attack. "You mean, all this time, this entire twenty seven year, religiously incited, genocidal war; you've been killing the chosen of your gods?"

"Yes."

Shepard laughed mirthlessly at the sheer painful irony. Billions dead because of a religious misunderstanding. "God damn it!" He struck out at the elite, hitting him in the jaw with his fist, letting out some of his anger. It felt good.

Shepard soon found himself pressed up against a wall with an energy sword less than an inch from his throat. He smiled at the elite through his unpolarized visor. "What are you going to do? Kill me? Like so many other innocent humans?"

The elite looked him in the eye for several long moments, "No, what the prophets ordered done to your race, they have had the brutes do to mine. They have already issued the orders to exterminate my kind. I want revenge against them, and their brutes." The zealot slowly lowered him until he stood on his feet again.

"Well then, looks like we share something in common. Let's get to earth; there are plenty of brutes to kill there." Shepard holstered his pilfered weapon and began walking out the door, only vaguely surprised when the other four followed behind him.

ooooooo

The pelican was exactly where the AI had said it was. Tali didn't trust the AI, that lack of trust extended to the two aliens who seemed so accepting of an erratic and dangerous synthetic life form. They had saved her life though; even the AI had helped with that. She was left with that thought as the rag tag group loaded into the transport.

Then there was the problem of stopping a superweapon that could possibly destroy several star systems at once. Shepard had been vague on that point. The other alien, Odeg'Delus, was completely silent.

The ramp of the primitive looking shuttle clanged shut, sealing them in. The badly injured alien lay on the floor of the dropship, strapped in with a few cargo straps. Liara was looking over the wound, it likely wouldn't do the injured man much good; spinal injuries could be treated, but it required an expensive surgical procedure.

Tali looked towards the other two aliens, the orange armored one, called an elite, appeared very uncomfortable. The small ship was not designed with his height and bulk in mind.

The other alien, Shepard, wore a rather somber black armored suit. He sat in a separate cockpit to the front, though the door was open.

Tali didn't stop to sit down in the troop compartment, instead she kept walking and strapped into the co-pilot's position, ignoring the sidelong glance Shepard sent her way.

After going through a pre-flight checklist, which Tali could only barely help with, they took off. She felt herself press into the seat as the craft accelerated. She let out a small yelp, if you felt acceleration aboard a mass effect shuttle that generally meant something had failed, or had gone otherwise catastrophically wrong.

"What's wrong?" Shepard asked without taking his view from the window in front of him.

"What? Nothing… just not used to… uh… the acceleration. We have compensators for that sort of thing." Tali mumbled nervously.

"Ah," Shepard returned his full attention to piloting, allowing an awkward silence to grow.

Tali looked around for something to fiddle with in an attempt to escape the awkwardness. She didn't want to touch the controls, so she started playing with her hands.

Fortunately Shepard seemed to sense the change in atmosphere, "So, why did you choose to sit up here? Coach not good enough for you?"

Tali got the joke and chuckled a little, "Actually I wanted to talk to you about that AI of yours."

"Artemis," Shepard corrected her absentmindedly, "'That AI' isn't all that descriptive. It helps if you call a specific AI by its name." He fiddled with the controls; the pelican began maneuvering on its own, the autopilot having taken over. "That and seeing the state 'that AI' is in, it would probably help not to aggravate her."

"You actually trust AIs?" Tali couldn't keep the incredulity out of her voice.

"Well, yeah… Okay not exactly, I don't trust rampant AIs like Artemis." The alien looked over at her. Tali noted the visor was de-polarized, that little trick would be nice to bring back to the fleet. "I take it your people don't use artificial intelligences?"

Though Shepard couldn't see it, her face darkened at his last sentence. "No, not since the Geth."

"You mentioned that before, some sort of AI program?" The man seemed genuinely curious. If only he knew the truth.

"They weren't originally, they were just simple tools of labor, but their programming became more and more complex, until eventually they gained self awareness and sentience, accidentally and without notice." Tali sighed, the old hatred stirred again, "A general order went out to shut them down, but we underestimated how well they were organized."

"Wait, you didn't program them for war did you?"

Tali shook her head, "No, they were mostly designed for manual labor, they learned on their own. No one knows when they achieved sentience; they may have been planning it years before the actual war. We weren't expecting it."

"No programming blocks against harming their creators, no three laws of robotics?" Shepard asked.

"What?" Tali felt some serious confusion, "What are you talking about?"

"Well, it might take a while to explain," He looked at the flight controls, "But, I guess we have time." Shepard was silent for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. "Humanity has always had something of a Frankenstein complex."

"I don't think that translated a what?" Tali was growing more and more curious. This, humanity, apparently was very comfortable with AI technology. She sensed a bit of an opportunity, better understanding of AIs could very well lead to the quarians recovering their homeworld.

"It's named after a book that's… let me think, over seven hundred years old, I think. Back then we didn't even have basic electricity, or good medicine. A large portion of that story stemmed from the practice in those days of digging up corpses to, well, better understand the science of medicine." Shepard took a breath to continue on.

Tali was astonished, not at the story, or the barbaric practices. Other races had done similar things earlier in their history, even quarians. Six hundred years was what astonished her. Even if their years were double the galactic standard, unlikely, that meant this race had advanced amazingly quickly. Quarian first contact had occurred well over two millennia ago. Yet citadel race technology was really only slightly ahead of what she had seen so far, and behind the technology of this 'covenant'. She hastily turned her attention back to Shepard who was continuing with his story.

"Anyways, the book was about a scientist who created life by reanimating the dead parts of several corpses. Eventually the creation killed him and most of his family before killing itself. That was what it was named after. Later on when we started reaching the industrial age, I think that sort of fear extended to automated replacements for humans. Eventually to the point where we feared our creations might forcibly replace us." She saw a smirk on the man's face. "Considering this was something like two hundred years before the first 'dumb' AIs and three hundred before the first 'smart' AIs, most of it was baseless speculation."

"Then how did you get over your fear of AIs then?" Despite the situation Tali found herself extremely interested in the story. These humans had seen artificial beings as dangerous even before they had computers.

"Well, mostly because they were so damn useful, besides in any computer system besides a smart AI, they are completely limited to their programming. They simply don't have the self awareness to make their own decision that would lead to a robot rebellion. They are really only advanced computers." Shepard reached out to the console and adjusted a few things on their automated course. "Smart AIs are a different story. We've been making them for a hundred years or so now large numbers only recently, mostly for military use, but quite a few colonies have one to coordinate mass infrastructure. Though a properly made dumb AI could do the same thing."

"What about that Frank-en-stein complex?" Tali sounded out the unfamiliar and untranslated word. "All AIs I know of that the council has ever encountered turn on their creators."

"Council?" Shepard looked over to her then thought better of his question, "Never mind, but yeah, smart AIs do go bad. Our scientists can normally predict when though, so they all start out with a time stamp, when they'll either think themselves to death, or go rampant."

Tali was surprised, they obviously knew a huge amount about AIs. She found herself thinking of her pilgrimage, extensive knowledge of AIs could be helpful in destroying the Geth, that would be a good pilgrimage gift. She looked over to Shepard, and found him staring at her expectantly. "Oh, right… just thinking… please, go on. You said Artemis is a smart AI?"

Shepard stared at her for a moment more before continuing, "Yeah, she's also obviously rampant. I think losing her ship and crew at reach might have pushed her over the edge."

"You're saying it like it has a psychological problem." Tali shook her head, "It's a machine."

Shepard looked at her; he appeared deep in thought, "What happened with the Geth anyway? You never got to that part."

Tali sighed, and hoped the human wouldn't kick her out an airlock once he hard that her race was responsible for loosing a dangerous AI race upon the galaxy.

"They won the war… killed billions of us, forced the rest of us to flee on a collection of every space worthy vessel we could scrounge or scavenge. For three hundred years we've wandered the stars, looking for a way to reclaim our homeworld, or even a new world to settle on."

"There have-"

An unwelcome female voice cut over the speakers, "Just like in battlestar Galactica!"

Tali felt a trickle of fear; the AI had listened to their entire conversation. She saw Shepard jump out of his seat as far as the restraints would let him. She knew he couldn't have known either.

"Oh, sorry you were saying something?" The _thing_'s avatar appeared in a small pad next to Shepard's pilot seat.

Tali prepared herself for the small craft to vent to space, or maybe blow up as the AI triggered its self destruct, or something. She closed her eyes, waiting for it to happen. Nothing did.

Slowly Tali opened her eyes back up. Everything was still the way it had been. The AI was 'staring' at Shepard, with a slight smile on its face. Shepard glared back, his expression unreadable from her viewpoint.

"You know, eavesdropping on another person's conversation isn't the best way to earn their trust."

Tali almost couldn't believe her ears, despite the AI holding all the advantages, control of computer systems, weapons, and who knew what else, Shepard was actually scolding her. These humans apparently had some serious guts.

Now she couldn't believe her eyes. The AI pouted, crossed its arms, and kicked at the 'ground', acting like a child. "You were talking about me."

"Yeah? So grow up and act your age." Shepard admonished the AI.

Tali shook her head in disbelief.

The AI reacted indignantly to that statement, "I'm only eight!"

"Yeah, and what is that in AI years? Like a hundred forty or so? You should be yelling at people to keep off your grass!"

Artemis lifted her head and looked off to the side, "Hmph!"

Tali heard an unexpected sound. Shepard was actually laughing at the antics of the AI. "Keelah, what have I gotten myself into?" Tali asked no one in particular.

"Well…" The AI looked to her station, "Let's see here, you've gotten yourself into the middle of a war to save all galactic life, stuck with some aliens you barely know, and best of all, your stuck with an AI you obviously don't trust. Oh so much fun!"

Tali just stared at the computer program, idly wondering if she could even shut the thing down if she tried.

"Well, as long as you're here, why don't you answer our erstwhile passenger's questions?" Shepard turned from the AI back to the controls, "I have a dropship to land."

The AI disappeared from Shepard's console and reappeared near Tali, causing her to jump a little.

"So, what do you want to know?" The little blue figure stared at her expectantly.

Tali returned the stare, trying to project as much hostility into her glare as she could. The AI returned the glare with a smile.

Tali continued to stare down the AI until they landed in a docking bay of some kind.

Shepard stood up and turned around, "Well, if you ladies are done establishing the pecking order, we've arrived."


	6. Chapter 6

_AN: I think I've gotten close to two hundred fifty e-mails over the past three nights... all of them, story alert, favorite story, review alert... I might just disappear for eight months again just to feel the love._

Shepard and his 'crew' stood inside the main mess hall of the Halcyon class _Dawn Under Heaven_. A half crippled pilot, a zealot, two completely unknown aliens, and himself. Several tables had been flipped over; scorch marks covered them from plasma rounds. The five of them sat around one of the still relatively intact tables, though in Shepard's and the Zealot's case, they stood. The dead had been taken to one of the Down Under's cargo airlocks. There were surprisingly few bodies on the vessel, even considering that it had been in dry dock when the covenant attacked reach.

It had been nearly two days since the _Midnight Dreary_ left him in system. They would be nearly at earth by now.

Shepard cut his musing short, "So, Tali how goes the slipspace engine repair?"

The female alien shifted uncomfortably, standard benches weren't designed with lower legs bent the way her's did, "Well, considering that you're FTL is based on principles I barely even comprehend its going well. If it was a mass effect drive I could have gotten it running in an hour, as it is… I have to look at a textbook as often as I have to guess what goes where. So far, no accidents, except I lost a wrench, never did find the thing."

Shepard knew quite well the reports of technicians disappearing mysteriously around malfunctioning slipspace generators. He was glad he hadn't lost the strange alien to such a fate. He had only known her for two days, but she was an agreeable sort, damn good with technology, and curious as hell about how UNSC ships worked without 'element zero', whatever that was.

"Joker?" Shepard turned to the pilot, who was currently eating some runny powdered eggs from the ship's food store.

"Well… first I got up, went to the bathroom, damn hard with only one working leg, then I brought up some porn from Artemis' collection an-"

"Damn it Joker, keep it up and I'll shoot your other leg." Shepard affixed Joker with his best intimidating stare.

Despite sitting down, Joker made a good attempt at coming to attention, "Sir, I regret to inform you that you are an asshole."

Shepard chuckled at the statement, "You know that you still work for the military don't you Joker?"

The expression on Joker's face suggested that it was news to him.

"Right…" Shepard scratched at the stubble beginning to grow on his chin, "So did you manage to get to what I asked you to do in between making love to your left hand?"

The three aliens had various expressions of shock or revulsion on their faces. Shepard and Joker burst out laughing at seeing them.

Joker let out a long breath, "Yes commander, I've inventoried our supplies with Artemis' help. I have a list of those I could see with my own eyes, and what she says is still on the Down Under somewhere."

The AI popped up from a small holoprojector at one side of the room, "You know if you'd get over that hole in your leg, you could suit up and check them out yourself."

"Well, I have been thinking of having robot legs installed, but it's a risky procedure…" Came the pilot's retort.

Shepard turned to the last two members of his team, Liara and Odeg, an asari and elite respectively, "And you two?"

"The dead have been properly laid to rest," The zealot reported, short and to the point. Shepard had originally worried that the elite wouldn't accept his commands. Thankfully that hadn't proved to be the case.

Liara gave her informal report next, "Your pilot's condition is stable, but I recommend finding a suitable medical facility as soon as possible." Liara was the one who had the least useful skills, both in starship maintenance and otherwise. She had explained her research to him when they had arrived, but so far all Shepard had found for her to do as to play nurse to Joker, who enjoyed the experience immensely.

Shepard began his own report, "Good, I've managed to consolidate our armory in crew bunk 4-B, and-"

Artemis interrupted him before he could continue, "Wait a minute commander, I need to say something."

Shepard waved for the AI to continue, he knew he didn't have any sort of claim to command, so unlike a normal military group he had to run his unusual team as a sort of democracy. He knew better than to throw around orders without reason. That they all seemed to accept his commands was unexpected, but he was flattered anyway.

"Well, if Joker really wants robot legs, I can do that. The Down Under was equipped with a full surgical bay and several prosthetic limbs, all rated for combat conditions, both in space and dirtside." Artemis lost a bit of her carefree insanity as she went on, slipping into behavior more suited to an AI. "All I need is a little help in getting the parts and someone to help me work the automated equipment."

"I thought Medical equipment was outside the command of shipboard AIs, I thought they used a dumb AI programmed for that." Joker looked up from his empty plate at the AI.

"Well, normally yes, but that limitation was done with a programming block, which is now gone." Artemis smiled, "Besides, you can't kneel down to your AI overlord properly without two working legs."

Joker's mouth worked for a few moments but no sound came out. Shepard noticed Tali reaching for her pistol.

Artemis merely started singing, "Daisy, Dais-"

Joker cut her off, "Whoa, don't sing daisy bell, I had nightmares about HAL 9000 as a kid."

"How old is that movie? Six hundred years or so?" Shepard asked the pilot, smirking at his discomfort. He looked back at the aliens, who all looked very confused, not a party to their human culture. "Never mind, new tasks; Liara, Joker, assuming you want a replacement leg, I want you two to work on that. I'd like to have a halfway competent pilot on hand when we get to earth."

"Halfway my ass! I'm at least three quarters competent." Joker rebuked him.

"Whatever you want to tell yourself Joker," Shepard replied with a smirk. "Anyway, continuing on, Odeg, since you also have a completely working envirosuit, I need you to travel the ship, and see if you can collect spare armor for myself and Joker, and anything else useful. Artemis can help you with that. Hate to give you such a simple job, but it needs to be done."

The zealot gave his race's equivalent of a smile, "It will clear my mind, and leave me focused on any future battle."

Shepard nodded, secretly relieved that the proud warrior had accepted. "That just leaves me and you," He announced looking at Tali, who was fidgeting a little. "I guess I'll help you out with those engine repairs, got to warn you, I'm not the best when it comes to mechanical stuff."

The alien looked him up and down, as if evaluating him, "You'll do," was all she said in response.

"Good, then since I don't have a gavel," Shepard reached over for Joker's fork and hit the table with it, making a tinny sound, "Meeting adjourned."

ooooooo

Liara walked down the corridor with the injured human leaning on one shoulder. She still didn't understand his sense of humor, but somewhere between shooting brutes and trying to hastily prepare the ship for departure, she had found a sense of camaraderie with these humans, the sangheili as he called himself, and even the quarian.

She shook her head, that was probably just stress talking, they had saved her life multiple times, but she had only known them for two days. She knew the quarian for longer, and while she didn't really believe the reputation their race had as thieves, she still grew up among it.

"Ah, ow oh crap…" Joker spoke up beside her.

"What is wrong Joker?" Liara asked the extremely vocal alien. She looked down at his wound, which was currently sealed with medigel, though a small trickle of bright red blood came out. There was still a gaping hole where the spike had gone through, but the edges of the hole had started healing.

"Mom always said don't pick at it, and guess what I did?"

"You picked at it?" Liara answered the question hesitantly.

In return she got a glare from the pilot, "That was a rhetorical question."

"Oh, right…" Liara felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

"You've got to work on that, and your sense of humor. You know, 'all work and no play'" Joker told her chuckling.

"No play what?" Liara asked in turn, which only made Joker laugh harder. She tapped on his wound.

"Okay, okay, you win!" Joker yelled.

Liara plastered on her best innocent look, "Win what?"

"That's what I thought," Joker replied, chuckling again. "Let's just get this operation over with."

ooooooo

Shepard kind of expected to find himself wedged somewhere in the middle of a mass of machinery. Instead he found himself standing next to the slipspace generator, handing tools to the alien as she affected repairs to the damaged parts of the engine.

More often he stood idly by while she changed various settings on the mass of machinery via computer interface. The whole situation did make for a good conversation. Tali seemed less nervous when she had something to work on. Before she had either seemed skittish like some teenager, or she had been overly paranoid about Artemis.

"So, what brings you out here? You know poking around in a debris field around a destroyed planet."

"Hand me that sealant," The alien demanded. After Shepard handed her the can she answered his question, "I'm on my pilgrimage, my right of passage into adulthood."

"Go on," Shepard prompted her when she seemed to pause.

"Just a second… need to… got it," Tali picked herself out of the slipspace engine, "Are you sure you actually want to hear about my people?"

"Well, yeah, I don't really know anything about you or your species besides your history with AIs." Shepard shrugged, "I guess I'm just curious."

"Well, you know about the Geth, how we've been wandering the stars for three hundred years," Tali paused to collect her thoughts, Shepard motioned for her to go on. "Well the Geth never pursued us; they haven't been seen or heard form for three hundred years. We've had to keep our fleet in working order for all that time. Some of our ships date back from before the flight from the Geth, we have to constantly patch and upgrade them so they don't fail on us."

"So, what does that have to do with a religious journey?"

"A what?" Tali looked at him, Shepard could only barely read her expression by her faintly glowing eyes, he assumed she was confused, "No, the pilgrimage isn't a religious thing. Young quarians are sent away from their birth ships to another vessel to promote genetic diversity."

Now it was Shepard's turn to be confused, "Wait, so how does that lead you out here? I assume Liara isn't a quarian too? I can't really be sure when it comes to an alien. Is asari like a gender or something?"

He heard barely contained laughter from her suit's speakers, "No, no, no… Liara is an asari, one of the council races. I almost forgot that you've never had access to a codex."

"A what?" Shepard raised an eyebrow.

The quarian brought up the holographic interface she called an omni-tool. After a few moments of tapping she brought up a display. "Oh right, of course the files wouldn't be compatible with whatever you're using."

"Never mind about that for now, keep telling me about the pilgrimage. I'm sure I can get Artemis to work up a converter for that later." Shepard could have sworn he saw her expression darken simply at the mention of an AI.

"Okay, well, we're required to move to a different ship when we come of age, but no quarian captain wants to accept a new crewmember without knowing that they can pull their weight. So we go on the pilgrimage, looking for something of value to give to the prospective ship so we can be accepted back."

"Huh, that seems a bit harsh," Shepard turned and leaned on the slipspace engine.

"Well, most gifts are accepted just because of a sense of tradition, though there is a stigma attached to a substandard gift." The alien wrung her hands in what Shepard had noticed was a nervous habit. "Actually I was kind of hoping to find something to bring back. We originally thought this debris field was a prothean ruin; their technology is the basis for most of citadel space. Intact prothean technology could represent a significant leap forward for the migrant fleet."

Shepard's face darkened at that, "Protheans? Don't tell me they were a hyper advanced civilization that existed a hundred thousand years ago?"

Tali cocked her head to the side, "Uh, no, fifty thousand years ago. They vanished mysteriously, but they left behind several relics like mass relays and the citadel. Oh right… you don't actually know what those are. I'll have to send you my codex."

"Later," Shepard waved his hand dismissively, and thought about what he had heard. The forerunners went extinct a hundred thousand years ago, she was obviously talking about some other hyper advanced race. Strange news, but not exactly important to the task at hand of saving earth. "We should probably get back to work,"

The alien didn't immediately pick up her tools "Just one more question, you keep referring to Artemis as a 'smart AI' what exactly does that mean?"

Shepard thought for a minute, AI technology wasn't exactly classified, but it had been one of the UNSC's most useful technologies when fighting the covenant. He decided to explain it to the alien. "Well, I don't know how your race, races, whatever, make AIs, but we have two basic types." He took a breath before continuing, "Smart and dumb, a dumb AI is basically just an extraordinarily complicated operating system for specific tasks. It can't really learn, and is only the sum of its programming. They're really good at what their programmed to be, database researcher, navigation, keeping a ship running up to speed without an excess of crew. They're really just a computer though; they can't do anything outside their programming."

A flash of recognition passed through the alien, "like a VI, though, normally there's a few hundred all devoted to a very specific task, user interface, individual guardian turrets, and so on."

Shepard didn't recognize the term and shrugged, "Sure that sounds about right, I think ours may be a bit more complicated, but yeah that's the basic idea. Smart AIs are a different story all together; they're made from, well a dead person's brain."

"What!" exclaimed the alien.

"Yeah… it's really expensive, and destroys the brain in the process, though they're normally made from flash cloned brains, not the actual person's brain. The remaining core programming is essentially a copy of a person's mental connections, capable of learning, problem solving, multitasking, learning how to accomplish new tasks, etcetera."

"That's… amazing… do they have the memories of their, uh, progenitor?"

"I think they have a few odd feelings and a sense of déjà vu every so often." Shepard found it slightly odd the utter reversal in attitude, from hateful to almost a child-like interest as soon as he mentioned that their AIs were made from organic brains. "There's a big problem with them though, as you've seen with Artemis. After a certain time limit they 'go bad', break their programmed blocks, and descend into rampancy, where they often devolve into a state of anger and lash out at anything they can, their creators, other AIs, anything really."

"Wait, then why is Artemis helping us?" Tali asked; suddenly back to her distrustful tone.

"Well, I remember a briefing about rampant AIs encountered earlier in the war. It's actually not so much that they always snap, they just sort of go crazy, they don't always get psychotic. I think there was one instance of an AI expressing feelings of, well, 'love' to another AI before they were destroyed by a covenant bombardment." He checked his watch, "Okay, that's enough history; we do have a world in danger."

Tali looked like she was about to ask him to continue, but apparently Shepard had managed to inspire her sense of duty. "Fine, hand me that nut driver."

ooooooo

Nihlus jumped out of the dropship and hit dirt. Almost immediately the turian trooper to his left took a shot to the head from a high power sniper rifle, Nihlus' upgraded shields kept him from a similar fate as he ducked behind a crate.

A marksman brought his own viper sniper rifle to bear and shot off a trio of rounds, "Target down."

Nihlus pushed forward, shotgun in hand. A storm of heavy slugs flew past and all around him, a pair of machine gun nests in the windows of the building ahead had the initial response force pinned by their transport ships.

He ducked in behind some sort of small cargo carrier as several mortar rounds landed in and among the turian forces. Of the squad that had originally sent the distress signal there was no sign.

The humans were smart; they had ambushed one of the recon squads securing the city just as their orbital fire support window closed. Forcing a group deployed by dropship to try and rescue their comrades.

A doorway opened into an underground passageway, out rolled a human tank of some kind, the turret arced over the flat main body like the stinger of some insect. It fired a round into the center of the turian squads. The shell exploded, sending shrapnel into the troopers. Despite being non-mass effect based over a half dozen troopers collapsed to the ground bleeding. The tank immediately began maneuvering aggressively, using abandoned civilian vehicles as cover. A second shot went out. The turian soldiers weren't as tightly packed this time, and only two fell to the storm of shot.

A few rockets reached out from heavy weapons troopers; all but one of the unguided munitions missed the rapidly maneuvering armored vehicle. The one that hit blew a large chunk out of the turret machinery, but barely slowed the vehicle down.

Nihlus stayed hidden, and waited for the tank to pass by, when it got within three meters he sprinted forward and jumped, landing on the tank's track. The operator saw him from his small metal cage, and threw the vehicle into a sharp turn. Nihlus didn't let himself be thrown off, he brought up his shotgun one handed and fired. Only two of the slugs hit, but they smashed through the man's helmet, and left the tank in an uncontrolled turn.

Nihlus leapt off the tank, only to find the other humans had stopped firing. The marksman from earlier called out, "They're starting to pull back,"

Nihlus walked back to the remaining turian soldiers. "They did what they meant to do, two of them and a light tank dead, at the cost of two squads worth of soldiers."

The remaining turians shifted uneasily, they were unused to someone outside their command structure giving orders. They were especially unused to losing. One of them spoke up, "But we won, they retreated from this sector."

Nihlus shook his head and walked back into the dropship, "If only it were that easy…"

ooooooo

Captain Kuril paced back and forth across his quarters. As a cruiser captain he rated his own private room, complete with sanitary facilities. Now that the enemy's orbital defenses had been smashed, there was almost nothing to do as a cruiser captain. The transports had already landed; frigates and gunships could provide fire support. Which left cruisers to maintain the orbital perimeter, a task that could be, and usually was, completed by a junior officer.

A bored turian was a restless turian, as commanding officer, it would be unbecoming for him to engage in the normal duels that soldiers often used to relieve stress. Which left him to pace his room.

His message terminal beeped. Kuril stopped his pacing and almost got on one knee and thanked the spirits for the interruption, almost.

He sat down at his small desk and brought up the message. It was from the specter he had spoken with earlier.

_Captain, your earlier fears may have more truth than you think. Our ground forces are being stalled by these… humans. On a more interesting note, I've found several references to a homeworld in small personal devices. Most of their computer systems are completely wiped clean with references to a 'cole protocol'. I don't know-_

Kuril's reading was interrupted by the general alarm sounding throughout the ship. He stood up and made his way to the command center. "Report!"

The crew was working with their usual proficiency. The communications officer filled him in on the details, "Frigate patrol reported detecting two dreadnaught sized vessels before all contact was lost. The admiral had ordered all ships into combat formation."

"Did the patrol send back any data or anything from their position?"

The com tech shook his head.

Kuril accepted the report with a nod of his head. A minute later the navigator reported that they were now in position with the rest of the fleet. A frigate screen moved about at roughly the midpoint between the planet's moon and the planet itself. A handful of frigates, the cruisers and the mighty _Void Hunter_ were in high orbit over the turian landing zones. Standard operating procedure to defend from a counter invasion.

"Massive radiation burst detected! To the port of fleet relative direction." Fleet relative being the direction the formation was travelling in, currently the orientation of the dreadnaught at the center.

Kuril leaned in on the railing, "Show me."

While he had meant for a display of relative positions and planetary bodies to be brought up, he got the display from a probe. Two small purplish white points of light appeared in the display. They quickly enlarged into glowing discs. His cheek flanges fell open in surprise.

Within seconds two curving, almost fishlike ships slipped out of the discs. The color of the ships reminded him of the first time he met the specter in the admiral's briefing.

They were colored purple…

ooooooo

_AN: I'm not sure how well this chapter turned out. I kinda wanted to go over the reactions of at least one ME alien to learning about UNSC technology. Might of gone over the top, I dunno. Also, yes I know medi-gel was created by humans, but I wanted the citadel races to have something useful besides omni-tools and kinetic barriers. That and it fits more into the mass effect style of things. The UNSC using the older, grittier feeling bio-foam and the council races having something nicer just feels right to me. Probably should have put a slight AU warning somewheres...  
_

_Also, for future reference, this story won't be along the teraton level MAC guns. Figure I'd let you know. Not enough of a sucker for reviews to want all those 'you got it wrong!' reviews. You can probably tell the spirit story uses them though... so... whatever.  
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	7. Chapter 7

Shepard leaned against a wall in the cafeteria; his armor patched and repaired with parts from ODST issued body suits. Joker was similarly attired, but sat at one of the mess hall tables fiddling with his new artificial leg. One of the aliens, Liara, being the same size and shape as a human, wore a complete set of ODST armor. Tali wore her normal envirosuit, but she had thrown on a few pieces of marine body armor to supplement it, mostly the parts containing storage compartments or oxygen supplies. Shepard was pretty sure that Odeg hadn't ever removed his armor.

The reason they were all dressed in armor, was simply that the slip space engine couldn't work without a very specific part. Shepard didn't understand the physics behind it, but in short it was the equivalent to a crankshaft, just dealing a lot more with quarks and micro black holes and other gibberish, so they couldn't just make a replacement.

There were plenty of slip space engines drifting in and among the debris field, the only problem was Artemis couldn't remotely detect whether or not they had this 'crankshaft' part. He was drawn from his musings by Joker complaining about something, again.

"Stupid AI didn't even have the nice models of artificial legs." Joker complained loudly.

"Please! That leg replicates the functions of your old leg perfectly, so what if it looks like a metal skeleton?" Artemis retorted.

Joker crossed his arms, "Yeah, but it would have been way, way cooler to have a grenade launcher built into my leg."

Shepard laughed at that, "Or you could, you know, just carry a grenade launcher."

Joker's expression turned thoughtful, "I might, I could put it next to the cup holder I keep meaning to install."

The group broke out laughing, Artemis stopped suddenly, mid laugh, "There's a signal coming from Reach."

"Impossible, everyone is dead… It's been months, the covenant are nothing if not thorough." Joker turned to regard the AI.

"Apparently not, it was a single transmission, not on a loop, and obviously recorded less than two days ago. I'll play it."

_This is Lieutenant Colonel Rodriguez, UNSC army. Don't know who blew up that ship in orbit, __didn't think there were any more survivors. I'm sort of stuck down here on the planet in a nuke shelter. I'd appreciate a pickup… If you're a bunch of covies listening in on this. I'd appreciate you coming down here so I can kick your ass._

"Well, he's certainly human…" Artemis commented.

Shepard furrowed his brow in thought, "If there is a survivor down there, we need to pick him up. Artemis, could there be any more?"

"It's highly unlikely that any are actually on reach… I almost have my doubts about this person actually being alive, that and why did he wait two days to send that? It is conceivable that some of the ships with cryo tubes could still have survivors aboard. Like Joker said though, the covenant would have likely found them. There have been ships in and out of reach since the end of the battle, poking around and essentially using surviving wrecks as target practice. It was only a few weeks before you showed up that the covenant seemed to fully pull out."

"Well then, how likely is this to be a trap?" Shepard asked the AI.

"Considering the content of the message, and the lack of subtlety the covenant generally display… Well, it's beyond unlikely. There is almost a one hundred percent chance of a survivor being down there."

Shepard focused on the AI's avatar, looking her in the 'eyes'. "Now I guess my only remaining question, is can we trust you to pick us back up if we go after this survivor?"

Artemis' avatar looked up to the ceiling and started whistling.

Shepard leaned back and crossed his arms.

Artemis stopped whistling and her avatar took on a serious look, and met his eyes, "No commander, you don't have to worry about a thing."

Shepard didn't know if he was consigning his group to slow starvation or asphyxiation on Reach, but he trusted the AI for some reason. "Okay, Joker, I'll want you to pilot the pelican, I will go down as well. Any of you three that wants to can come as well.

Odeg stepped forward, followed by the other two. Shepard nodded his head, "Alright Artemis, hold down the fort while we're gone." He gestured to the group with him, "Let's go ladies."

Shepard had to try hard not to laugh at the reaction the elite showed at being called a female.

ooooooo

Tali rode in the antiquated seeming shuttle for a second time. The ride was vastly smoother than the first, testament to the pilot's skills over Shepard's. As the shuttle continued to the planet, her thoughts drifted back to the AI. It was strange… what if the quarians of three hundred years ago had made the Geth that way? Would they have rebelled, would the quarian people still have their homeworld?

She shook the questions from her mind. What ifs were useless bouts of nostalgia.

She looked around the passenger compartment. Shepard and Joker were riding up front, which left her with Liara and Odeg'Delus. The sangheili was a mystery to her. The hulking warrior was apparently a man of few words. She had gotten to know something about the humans, she figured now was the time to learn something about the sangheili, or elites as Shepard and Joker called them.

"So…"

At that simple statement she found the elite looking at her expectantly. She almost lost her nerve, somehow she managed to continue asking, "I don't know anything about your people."

The alien's reptilian head turned to the side, "That makes two of us."

When he didn't elaborate, Tali felt the need to push him, "What do you mean?"

Odeg regarded her again for a few moments, "If you discover that the past three thousand years of your species' development was based on a lie, ask me that again."

He turned away, making it clear that the conversation was over.

She debated walking up to the cockpit; at least humans seemed to be good conversationalists. Before she could get up a small light came on, her translator showed it as a reentry alarm. Instead of standing up she tightened her restraints as the small ship began shaking a little as atmospheric drag started heating up the outside.

After a few minutes of shaking, she felt the ship level off. The rear hatch began to open, showing a blasted landscape behind them. They were flying about a hundred meters above the tortured ground.

A small alarm went off in her helmet, which she quickly silenced. It told her the air now filling the cabin wasn't safe to breath. Her suit had switched to a combination of internal supplies and what little oxygen that could be scrubbed from the air. She was glad that she had the foresight to attach extra oxygen supplies from a set of human armor.

The terrain seemed to change suddenly; there was a lot more blackened ash. It was hard to tell, but before the bombardment Tali guessed this might have been a forest.

They eventually passed over a small hill; Joker brought the ship around for a landing. They slowly began settling down; Tali could make out a small metal door in the side of the hill.

The pelican shook from an explosion and went spinning. The centripetal force caused her to be pressed against her straps. She felt something tear, then the odd sensation of freefall. Tali saw the sangheili fly past her, having not strapped in, then she saw nothing.

ooooooo

Tali woke sometime later in a daze. She quickly checked to see if her suit was breached, almost as reflex. Fortunately it seemed to be intact.

After getting that out of the way she took in her surroundings. She was lying down in a small depression. The surface she lay in was hard and slightly translucent. She didn't take the time to study it further. Voices came from not far away, she couldn't quite make them out, and so she crawled to the lip of the crater.

She heard a faint mechanical whine, but couldn't see anything. A dust storm had apparently been brewing; visibility was less than two dozen meters. She took a chance and stood up, walking towards the voices as quietly as she could.

Two dark figures stood over a single prone one. At this range Tali could overhear their words.

"I can scarcely believe my own eyes. A zealot working with the humans?" One remarked to the other.

The other was slow in replying, "Such heresy, end his pathetic life before he wakes. A traitor such as this does not even deserve a proper death."

Tali didn't know who the two figures where, but she could guess who they were talking about. She brought out her shotgun and fired a blast at them. As expectedly they both whipped around and charged at her. One was firing what appeared to be blue bolts of plasma at her, the other held a blade made of energy, like the one carried by Odeg when she first met him.

They were quick; she had to give them that. Tali fired a second blast at the one with a gun before breaking into a run. She didn't have any more tech mines, just her guns… and… she holstered her shotgun while running and tapped a few commands into her omni-tool.

A small ball of light and mass effect fields popped into existence behind her. Omni-tool drones, having no solid form, were mostly useless, they needed direct line of sight to an omni-tool to function, and were a significant waste of power, but they could provide a good distraction if used right. Mostly because they could mimic the look of a combat drone, which definitely could do something.

In this case it proved life saving. She heard her pursuers yell in surprise, glancing back, she saw them switch to attack the drone, giving her time to duck in and hide behind an outcropping. As soon as line of sight was broken the drone disappeared. The two aliens pursuing her let out a cry of outrage.

Tali knew it was only a matter of time before they found her, so she started sneaking along behind cover, back to where she thought Odeg had fallen from the pelican.

A few tense minutes later she found herself standing above the gold armored warrior. She didn't know how to wake the sangheili up. There were no chemical injection ports, so she simply guessed. Tali took the alien's head in hand and shook it, "Wake up!"

A deep voice came from behind her, "Ha ha! I knew you would come back for the traitor!" The voice belonged to a sangheili like Odeg, initially there was nothing there, then a black armored sangheili materialized from some sort of active camouflage. The alien strode forward, and in two steps picked Tali up by the throat, holding his plasma gun to her chest. The warrior cocked his head to one side, "You aren't human…"

Any further thoughts were cut off and twin glowing white blades stabbed through the sangheili's chest. Tali collapsed to the ground choking as the black armored alien died and released his grip, "thanks." She managed to mutter to the zealot.

"So, the traitor is awake. Good, I was hoping for a fight." The second black armored sangheili, drawn by the noise, stalked into view from the cover of the dust storm.

Tali readied her shotgun, Odeg held his sword at the ready, neither side moved.

"You do not know what you talk of fool. The prophets have betrayed us. Once their pet brutes are finished with the human home world, they will march on our own." Odeg tried to reason with the other warrior.

"Bah, lies from a dishonorable coward!" The other one snarled.

Tali could see it took a huge amount of self control for the zealot not to leap at the other warrior.

"I have seen it myself, on the streets of high charity, as the brutes slaughtered our women and children, then as the flood came, and the bastard truth fled our once great city in the forerunner's own dreadnaught." Odeg's words were laced with bitterness. Tali realized he was speaking from personal experience.

"I will hear no more!" The other ignited his own sword and charged.

Tali shifted to the side but missed the warrior with her shotgun. Odeg, in an impressive display of skill, diverted the other sangheili's blade and sliced him in half in a single motion.

Instead of a roar of triumph, Tali simply saw him shake his head, "What a waste."

Tali decided not to comment; instead she brought up her omni-tool. Thankfully she detected the small IFF signals Shepard told her they used for their motion detectors, "This way," She gestured in the direction of the rest of their team.

Odeg nodded, "Yes, there maybe more of my people that were left here, we must stop them."

ooooooo

The two dreadnaughts closed in on the turian fleet. Kuril watched with apprehension. Two cruisers near the edge of the fleet began maneuvering rapidly. Then they disappeared from the display.

A transmission followed their deaths, "Be warned, enemy is using some sort of guided plasma weapon. Kinetic barriers ineffective."

Kuril had an idea, considering how far away the previous ship had engaged… he began shouting orders, "Open fire, I don't care how far out of range we are. Just start shooting!"

He didn't feel the ship shudder as the cruiser's main gun opened up, their compensators were too well designed. He was rewarded with reports of multiple hits on the enemy vessel. The other ships of the fleet took his example, even the idiot admiral of the _Void Hunter_. Soon the first of the two dreadnaughts was in the middle of a withering hail of mass effect cannon fire, including that from another dreadnaught.

The enemy vessel merely shrugged off the weapons fire. Two more cruisers disappeared from the display. Leaving only four cruisers and the dreadnaught, with only thirty six frigates as escorts. That changed as the frigates attempted to close into guardian weapon ranges. The two dreadnaughts tore half of those from the skies as soon as they got in range.

Kuril was left standing at his command post in open flanged astonishment. Two ships had destroyed half of the remaining fleet, and their shields were still up.

"Another two plasma charges fired. Both are heading toward the _Void Hunter_."

Kuril watched in morbid fascination as the mighty dreadnaught simply disappeared from the display, "By the spirits…" he breathed.

"Orders sir?" One of the bridge crew turned to look at him.

Kuril snapped out of his state of shock, "Order all remaining vessels to regroup at the mass relay. We'll be back, to rescue our comrades on the ground, or to avenge them!"

ooooooo

Nihlus walked into his frigate, which was landed amid the army transports. After the mission he was hoping for a short time to relax. A messenger ran up to him, telling him already that wouldn't likely happen. "Sir, we received a transmission from the fleet, unknown dreadnaughts were sighted, and they are engaging the enemy."

"Any more information?"

"None so far sir. Increased chatter on human frequencies, we still haven't decrypted it. The fleet stopped sending updates on the battle a few minutes ago, we know they lost two cruisers and several frigates before they stopped transmitting."

Nihlus nodded and changed his course to where the human prisoner was being held. The door opened and he stalked in, ignoring the guards, he grabbed the human by the collar of his worn down armor and lifted him up. "You will tell me how many ships are left in your fleet."

"I miss you too buddy." The human replied snidely.

Nihlus smacked him and sent him flying to the ground. "Now!"

"What's the rush?" The human kept up the sarcastic attitude.

Nihlus tapped a few commands on his omni-tool bringing up a few random intercepted transmissions, text only ones. He brought them up on a display. "What do they say?"

The human didn't even bother to look, "I dunno."

Nihlus snarled, ready to resort to less pleasant measures. "You will decrypt these for me now, or I will start rounding up your civilians and executing them right here in front of you." Nihlus personally didn't want to resort to such a disgusting tactic, but if the fleet was lost this might be his only chance at saving turian lives until reinforcements could show up.

The human gave him a hate filled stare for a few moments, and then turned to the display. "I'll need one of our computers to decrypt it,"

Nihlus gave an order to one of the guards, and five minutes later they brought a small but heavy portable computer of some kind up to the cell.

Nihlus roughly shoved the computer into the prisoner's lap. A few minutes more and the prisoner began reading. "Winter contingency has been… shit."

Nihlus was adept at reading many species facial expressions. The human's expression was no longer one of indifference or hate, but of fear.

"They're here, oh god they're here. Hell! Shit! Damn!" The string of expletetives continued on. Nihlus' sense of urgency was only heightened by his curiosity.

Nihlus waited for the human to take a breath, "Who is here?" He demanded.

"The covenant…" The human stood up suddenly, "Remember when I told you to watch out for a big purple ship? You might want to check to see what's in orbit."

Nihlus just about pulled his pistol and shot the man, he was obviously treating this as another joke, "Do you want me to shoot your civilians?"

"You'd be doing them a favor if they send the jackals down. I'm deadly serious. Get a telescope and point it at the sky, now!"

If anything the sheer vehemence in the man's voice convinced him.

He walked out, and glanced towards a window. It was dark outside; when he had entered the frigate it had been sunny...

He stepped up to the window and looked up. A massive ship hovered in the sky above the turian landing zone, what looked like a swarm of flies came out of its hangar bays. Guardian defense turrets opened up, and were just as quickly destroyed by either the ship itself or the smaller fliers.

His radio crackled, "All turian forces, escape and evade. Enemy has orbital control. Repeat…"

Nihlus recognized Kuril's voice in the transmission. That told him things had become very bad in orbit. Not that the dreadnaught somehow hanging above the landing site hadn't proved that already.

He ran back to the prison cell, "Get you're weapons and move! Outside, we're being invaded." The two soldiers were too well trained to ask questions. They merely shouldered their weapons and ran down the hallways.

Nihlus turned to the human still sitting in the chair, "What is this covenant?"

"Genocidal, alien, monsters, they've already destroyed over a hundred worlds. If you want to live we're going to need to work together. You've got a few ships, and we have an army here. If we can fight the covenant off on the ground, you might be able to force them to retreat in space."

Nihlus nodded, seeing no other option at the time, "If we still have a fleet."

ooooooo

_AN: Well, here's the next chapter, I had planned for them to get to earth at this point, but I decided I wanted a 'team building exercise' before that happened. Also I wanted to introduce a few OCs, one of which was suggested by one of my readers, Just a Crazy-Man (he's also the reason we aren't at earth yet, blame him ;) ). Originally this was supposed to happen on earth, but I think it has/will turn out well. If you need to ask, yes I will get to ME1 story eventually, I'm just not going to skip over much at all._

_Also, I have to point you over to Gobbles the Turkey's story, Halo: The Incursion. Just as he admits in his author's note that he's my creepy stalker (considering I don't think we've even communicated besides reviewing each other's story... yeah...), I have to say his story is one of my favorite halo/ME crossovers here, I draw plenty of inspiration for my own story from his. Even if they have different plotlines._

_One last note, if you want to know why I've underpowered the MAC guns in my story look at Wannabecriminalman's profile page. He has a nice well thought out argument against over powered MACs. I don't agree with every bit of his ship stats section, but it does make for a good argument._

_Well, before my AN gets longer than my story, I'll just say that reviews are appreciated._


	8. Chapter 8

Shepard shook his head to clear it. He found himself, for a second time in less than a week, sitting in the cockpit of a recently crashed pelican, flown by Joker.

"You know…" Joker said before coughing suddenly, "If this keeps happening, my reputation as a flawless pilot might be compromised." The pilot reached over and pulled a weapon out from beside his seat.

Shepard frowned and looked closer at the weapon, "Is that was I think it is?"

"Yes," Joker replied, then hefted the grenade launcher and walked over to the entrance to the troop compartment.

"Compensating for something?" Shepard asked, and joined him, lifting his rifle as well. When the door opened they found the pelican had set down relatively well, Liara was already unstrapping from her seat, Tali and Odeg were no where to be seen. "Where did they go?"

Liara looked at him and shook her head, "They flew out of the crew compartment while we went down."

"Shit," Shepard started walking towards the open rear hatch, "Come on, we'll see if we can pick up their IFF tags. They could still be alive; we were pretty low when we went down."

The alien pulled out her plasma pistol and followed them out.

To Shepard, Reach was completely unrecognizable. Blasted landscape, shrouded in a duststorms was all he could see, where otherwise grassland and forests dominated the wilds of Reach. The atmosphere was almost unbearably hot, dust kicked up by the bombardment made his helmet mandatory, visibility was almost nil. He checked his assault rifle, making sure the safety was off, and set off into the dust.

Shepard held a hand up, signaling the group to stop, "Hear that?"

Joker nodded and started looking up into the sky, "Yeah… not good."

Liara, not recognizing the sound, looked back and forth between Joker and Shepard, "What is it?"

"Phantom, covenant dropship, some of them have cloaking, judging by how loud it is, could be two dozen to two hundred meters away. Hard to tell in this weather." Shepard replied, "Just stay down and try not to be seen, keep your eyes and ears open."

He stepped forward another couple feet and stopped again. A set of tracks were worn into the blasted and melted surface, "Look at these, too big to be human, too many to be just Odeg. We're dealing with more covenant, some of the brutes must have survived."

"Um, commander?" Liara's voice had a hint of worry to it.

Shepard walked over to the scientist, "Shit… that's a big footprint."

"No shit Sherlock," Joker walked up to them as well, "That came from a hunter…"

"Right, we might need that grenade launcher." Shepard stood back up and led the group through the terrain towards a group of faint UNSC IFFs. Dust, glass, and the omnipresent hum of the phantom were their only companions.

ooooooo

The _Justice Bringer_ hung in space near relay 314. Kuril sat in his command center waiting for any other ship to arrive. Only fourteen frigates and a cruiser besides his had made it back so far. It had been over an hour since he ordered a retreat. It was time to accept that the rest of the fleet was dead, killed by the two unknown dreadnaughts.

"Give the order; we're transiting back through the relay. Send the report to the Hierarchy as soon as we get in range of an extranet buoy, and send a report to the council telling them they've probably lost a specter." Kuril turned back to the central holoprojection after giving orders to the crew, thinking about what just happened.

The turian fleet just took a serious blow from an unknown group of aliens, after invading a planet possibly belonging to them. The only thing was, the new arrivals didn't use the same language, and so far they had been unable to translate it.

Kuril now found himself in the position of commander of the expeditionary fleet, at least what was left of it. This new enemy could be worse than the rachni or krogan; they actually had directed energy weapons, against which kinetic barriers were next to useless. Hopefully the council would be able to pull together against the threat, rather than focus on blaming the turians. Even more so, Kuril hoped that the admiral's decision to invade hadn't provoked these aliens beyond reason.

As the bright light of a relay transit faded away, one of the bridge crew came up to him with a datapad, "Sir, I've completed translating the transmissions between the two enemy dreadnaughts."

Kuril fixed the tech with a disbelieving stare, "How did you manage to do that so quickly?"

The tech responded crisply and professionally, "Sir, we downloaded backups of what we could salvage from the human databases. There were several translation files, one of which was for the language used between the unknown dreadnaughts. They appeared to be broadcasting in the clear as well."

"They were broadcasting in the clear!" Kuril asked in confusion, "Never mind, what did they say?"

"I have the recording here," The tech answered, "in full holographic form."

To send a simple communication in full three dimensional media required a lot of communications bandwidth, it seemed odd that these aliens would do so in a battle situation. Kuril gave a nod to go ahead and play it.

The image of the galaxy flickered and died, replaced by two alien figures facing each other. One was a thickly muscled bipedal, wearing some sort of heavy armor, long teeth filled its snout, but much of its facial features were covered by an ornate helmet. A simple looking weapon was holstered at its side. The being's attire, posture, and appearance screamed warrior, even more so than a krogan.

The other alien was the complete opposite. It had an extremely long neck protruding from a small hump. Its limbs were frail and appeared almost useless. Its facial features where wrinkled and covered in fuzz. Drooping flaps of skin adorned its cheeks and jaw. The eyes were not particularly intelligent looking, reminding Kuril of a domesticated herbivore. It floated with the assistance of some sort of belt, reinforcing the notion of physical frailty.

The two aliens began speaking; the large one was the first to speak, "Noble prophet, unknown ships have been detected in orbit of the human colony. They are not of human make."

The frail one, the 'prophet' gave the larger alien a look of condescension, "Chieftain, are they bombarding the human's world into dust?"

"No," The chieftain replied.

The prophet continued to speak, "Then they are aiding the humans, the humans may not be able to help that they are born an affront to the gods. But… these… newcomers, are willingly consorting with such debased filth, they are obviously no better than the traitorous sangheili, so they shall burn with the rest. Their destruction is the will of the gods, and we?"

"We are their instruments." The chieftain bowed and the transmission cut out.

Kuril's mandibles worked for a few moments in surprise. These aliens had attacked them simply because they _thought_ they were helping the humans. He turned immediately to the tech, "Send this to the council, priority flag."

ooooooo

Tali and Odeg had been walking for nearly fifteen minutes, and the small group of IFF signals hadn't gotten any closer. Thankfully they hadn't run across any more sangheili either. Tali decided to try and find out why they were being attacked by Odeg's people, "Why are they attacking us? I thought your people were allied with the humans."

"We have been allies for less than two weeks," Came the simple reply.

"Oh," When Odeg didn't elaborate further, Tali decided to pry, "Then why did you kill those two, why not try and convince them that your cause was right?"

"I did." Odeg increased his pace, forcing her to jog to keep up, ending the conversation.

Tali sighed and set her attention back to their surroundings, she saw a dark shape appear on their left, a shadow amid the dust storm, "Odeg, on the left, I think that is the pelican."

The hulking warrior nodded his head and let out a little huff before walking towards the downed ship. Tali followed, covering the warrior with her shotgun.

Odeg ducked down to look inside. Tali stood in the duststorm, nervously watching the surroundings. She almost didn't hear the deep subsonic rumble. She did hear the whine of some machinery charging and stepped down to see what the sangheili was doing inside the pelican. That action saved her life as a stream of glowing green plasma smashed into the pelican, right where she had been standing, melting a hole in the side of the vehicle.

"Hunters!" she heard the zealot yell out a late warning from inside the pelican.

Two massive shapes resolved themselves from the swirling dust. Though hunched over they were taller than Tali, and covered in spikes and armor.

One hunter's arm began glowing green. Tali sprinted out of the way, staying just ahead of the stream of burning plasma as it tracked her motion. She saw Odeg walk out of the pelican, firing a plasma pistol ineffectually at the hulking shapes. Their armor seemed impervious to the weapon.

The second massive alien reared back and lunged towards her, swinging what appeared to be a massive shield through the air. Even though it impacted half a meter from her, Tali felt the impact and stumbled. She pulled her own pistol and fired several rounds into the center of the beast before it could swing again. She was rewarded with a short spray of phosphorescent orange blood. The thing didn't even slow down, the only reason she didn't end up flattened, was Odeg switching fire to the hunter threatening her.

The lumbering beast spun around faster than she would have thought possible and hunched over, firing its cannon at the sangheili.

Tali noticed exposed orange flesh along the thing's back and fired her pistol at the new target. The rounds passed straight through to the other side, but the thing barely seemed to notice.

She realized the tiny rounds fired form her pistol probably didn't cause it enough pain to register, or so she thought. The hunter whipped around, bringing its shield up and around, intent on squishing her like some annoying insect.

The world seemed to slow down around Tali; the shield came up, and began swinging down towards her…

An explosion hit the tip of the shield, causing the hunter to stumble back and saving her life.

Tali turned around to see where the shot had come from. A human in green armor, with a bulky face mask stood a short distance away, hefting some sort of heavy weapon.

"What the hell?" She heard the man mutter under his breath.

Tali turned to follow his line of vision, she saw Odeg firing his plasma pistol back at the hunters. She turned back to the man, "Are you the lieutenant colonel?"

"Um…" The man's posture suggested extreme confusion, he seemed to shake it off, "Fuck it, Yeah I'm Lieutenant Colonel Rodriguez." He yelled out and fired a rocket at the two hunters before rolling into cover behind a rock outcropping, narrowly avoiding their return fire.

The zealot made it to their cover as well, sliding in next to the colonel, "We must regroup with the commander and return to our ship."

The Colonel shook his head as if in defeat, "Ordinarily, I'd ask a question or two… but right now… I guess beggars can't be choosers." The man threw aside his weapon and pulled out a well worn grayish silver gun. He racked the shotgun and fired a shell towards the two hunters, "I suggest we run that away," He jerked a thumb behind them, "I don't have any more weapons that can take out those hunters easily, and if those stealth elites are nearby we'd be f'ed if we try to take them out the old fashioned way."

Odeg looked towards the hunters as if debating whether to run or to fight. He seemed to come to a decision and turned to the human, "Lead the way."

ooooooo

Nihlus and the former prisoner stood to either side of an emergency hatch. The human, a man named Lieutenant Richard Hall, carried a spare pistol from the armory. The weapon was relatively simple and didn't really require any training to use and maintain, unlike some heavier weapons.

Nihlus looked to the human, and then nodded at the hatch, "What can I expect?"

"Typical covenant tactics involve taking out large targets with air support, then once the enemy has broken they'll send in cannon fodder, followed by more elite troops. Aim for the leaders and the grunts will scatter." The human soldier turned to the door as if considering, "We'll have to watch out for their vehicles though, unless you have a rocket launcher hidden on you somewhere?"

Nihlus gave him the turian equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

"Right… okay, that ship overhead is probably going to sit there, dropping troops from its grav lift. You're going to want to send out a general retreat order, get out into the countryside, and then I'll try and contact our command staff, get a truce working so we can work on kicking them off our planet. Of course before we do any of that, we'll have to survive."

Nihlus keyed the controls to the small airlock. The sounds of a hard fought battle filled the air. Turian non-coms yelled out orders to their troops, much deeper voices could be heard from further away.

"Brutes… not elites, damn I've never fought brutes. They're supposed to be tough as hell." Hall raised his pistol and pointed it in their general direction.

Nihlus drew his shotgun and followed the human lieutenant out. A few turians saw the armed human and gave him a sidelong glance, but they also saw the specter and didn't ask questions, instead rushing to the sounds of battle.

"You know this planet better than I do." The human looked up to the ship hanging in the sky, as the now outnumbered and outgunned turian fighters and gunships tried desperately to destroy their covenant counterparts. "Where to?" He asked nonchalantly.

The sound of gunfire close by drew Nihlus' attention, "We help our forces. I'll need to contact the general in charge and convince him to retreat."

Without waiting for a reply Nihlus moved towards the nearest sounds of battle. It wasn't long before he got his first look at the covenant. Dozens of corpses of small aliens littered the battlefield where they had apparently rushed a group of turians holding a superior position.

"Grunts, little bastards are damn vicious in a pack." Hall commented from behind him.

The turians turned to regard the new arrivals. Their leader took a long look at the human. Nihlus cut off any objections before they could be made, "He's with me; we need to find the general."

Hall smirked at the officer, "And then kick all the alien bastards off our planet."

The unnamed turian officer scowled, "He's commanding from the central troopship."

The conversation was interrupted by a low buzzing sound.

Hall brought his pistol up and started firing, "Drones!"

A swarm of dozens of flying insects buzzed around the frigate they had taken shelter near, firing a near continuous stream of green and pink projectiles.

Two turian troopers exploded in a pink mist. The others began firing into the air, missing more often than not.

One of the drones let out a screech and plummeted to the ground. The human dived towards its dead body and came up firing the dropped weapon.

Nihlus' own shotgun took out another half dozen of the flying creatures before they broke off. Only five turians fell in the short firefight.

"We need to move, elites, brutes, or hunters will move in next. We probably don't have the firepower to deal with any of those." The human seemed to take in the turians' skeptical looks. "We've been fighting these bastards for twenty seven years. Trust me."

"I have a feeling Admiral Korrus, if he is still alive, was a bit hasty in assaulting this colony," Nihlus remarked offhandedly, a few of the turians nodded their heads, agreeing with him. "Now, move out, back to the command post. I'll take point, lieutenant, you're with me."

Before the group could move more covenant weapons opened up on their cover. A group of four aliens were advancing with some sort of glowing shield held out in front of them. Behind them many more small aliens were advancing while firing their own plasma weapons.

A bright blue object soared over the advancing aliens. It landed on the turian officer, where it stuck and refused to come off. "Plasma grenade! Get back!" the human shouted from behind him. One of the other turians refused to heed his warning, and attempted to remove the grenade. Both of them disappeared in a bright blue flash as the explosive went off. Protected by his armor, Nihlus barely felt the heat from the blast. Several other turians were not so fortunate.

Nihlus ignored the death and took aim with his shotgun at the leading aliens. The shots seemed to simply bounce off the shields they carried in front of them. He switched his aim to the side where the alien's gun poked out; he was rewarded as the lizard-like thing reared back in pain. A follow up shot from a fellow turian put it down quickly.

A massive gold armored alien shouldered its way through the smaller ones, seeming to shrug off the rounds that hit it. It raised a wicked looking weapon and fired off several explosive rounds at their cover, keeping the turians' heads down.

"Good thing I have this," The human lifted a pinkish weapon up and over cover, firing a spray of glowing pink rounds towards the alien.

To Nihlus' surprise, the rounds tracked their target, even as the alien attempted to spin out of the way. Several of them stuck in the alien until they exploded in the same manner that claimed two turians earlier.

The smaller aliens broke cohesion and fled. The three shield bearing aliens attempted to sprint away. Nihlus and the other turians gunned them down as they fled.

Hall stood up and looked over the battlefield, "We need to move, now!" He pointed to the air, where several dropships began turning around towards their position.

The turians needed no further prompting.

ooooooo

Shepard and his two teammates advanced along the rubble covered ground. Visibility was almost nil. They could still hear the phantom, though it was much quieter than before. He turned to Liara, "I don't suppose the blue shiny thing you do is any good at detecting an enemy."

"That's not how biotics work commander." The human-looking alien replied.

"Oh well, worth a shot." Shepard grinned at her and continued forward, assault rifle in hand.

It wasn't long until the quiet was broken by the distant sounds of a hunter's assault cannon firing.

"Shit, hope they're okay…" Joker whispered.

Shepard shot him a glare before motioning for the group to take cover. There was a bit more weapon fire, including something that sounded like a shotgun. A final roar from a hunter sounded. Shepard couldn't tell if it was one of victory or rage. He hoped for the latter, but deep down he assumed the former. He turned his gaze in that direction, but couldn't make anything out from the swirling dust.

Shepard tightened his grip on his weapon; they had already lost two members of the team. All for a possible survivor, "This guy better be worth it." Shepard's mind briefly considered that he had known those two aliens for only a couple days, that and the fact that they were aliens.

He shook the thought from his head and started forwards again, there were hunters on the loose; if he wasn't careful they could all die.

Several minutes of nerve wracking travel later he began to see the outline of the landing pad they had originally tried to land at. He also saw the silhouettes of two hunters. As he and his two remaining team members crept forward he could make out more details. The hunters had their backs exposed, and appeared to be taking turns firing on the bunker door. That actually boded well; it meant someone human was still alive on reach.

Shepard carefully took aim with his assault rifle. He would only get one burst into the hunter; he had to make it count. "Joker, you ready? Joker?"

Before he could turn around and check on the pilot, he felt himself being lifted up roughly into the air. He found himself staring into the face of a black armored elite. His two squadmates were similarly incapacitated.

He could hear Joker thrashing impotently against his captor, "What gives we're supposed to be on the same side!"

The elite holding Shepard barked out orders "Keep his heresy silent. I will not listen to such lies."

The hunters stopped firing; he could hear their strange rumbling sounds as they spoke to one another and walked over to the group of elites and humans. The leader elite turned to look at the monstrous aliens. "Get back to opening the bunker. The fleet may have abandoned us, but we still have our duty to destroy the human scourge."

More deep rumbling, felt rather than heard, followed the orders.

Shepard took the opportunity to try and negotiate with the elite, "There's been a civil war, something about a sacred ring. Your prophets have ordered the brutes to kill every sangheili in existence." He made sure to get the race pronunciation correct, to try and not offend the volatile warrior. "Only truth is still alive, we can stop them, win this war."

"Lies!" the elite practically roared, bringing its plasma rifle to Shepard's gut.

He kept his eyes open and stared into the elites face, "Sure, sit here, live your last days in blissful ignorance while the brutes glass your planets, just as they did to ours."

The elite let out a low growl, and reared back with his gun arm. A faint blue glow filled his vision, and he felt himself go flying through the air.

As he pulled himself up into a sitting position, coughing and wheezing from the impact, he saw Liara still standing and glowing blue. The elites and Joker had been sent flying by the blast of biotic power.

"I don't care how many surprises, or how much cunning you humans have, you will still die by my hands!" The elite from earlier was stalking towards him, energy knife in hand. He seemed none the worse for wear being sent flying.

Shepard reached for his pistol and drew it, knowing he wouldn't be able to kill the elite before being skewered. He fired the pistol anyway.

He didn't believe his eyes when the elite seemed to pop, like some overripe fruit.

Shepard slowly looked upwards in awe. The towering form of a hunter stood there, its shield buried in the spot where the elite had stood. It regarded him with an unreadable expression. Shepard didn't quite know what to do, his mouth hung open in sheer surprise.

Then he heard the unmistakable click-whine of plasma grenades sticking to their target. The hunter let out a low pitched wail, and was literally torn in half from the explosion.

Shepard looked to see the other two elites behind the now dead hunter. They raised their fists in victory. Their celebration was short lived, with a roar that seemed to shake the planet itself, the second hunter charged the two aliens. A swing of its massive shield sent one elite flying like a rag doll. The second elite wasn't so fortunate. It found itself bowled over. The hunter didn't let it get up. The massive beast lifted one foot up and brought it down on the struggling elite, again and again.

When the hunter finally stopped there was nothing recognizable left. It stepped back from its gruesome kill, and tossed its head back. A deep incredibly mournful sounding wail came from the huge alien.

Shepard was completely at a loss for what to do. He had always seen hunters as walking tanks, not… this.

Liara, having no prior experience with hunters, was the first to work up the courage to speak, "Are you okay?"

The hunter didn't acknowledge the asari's question. Instead it seemed to launch into a speech in what might have been its native language, all the while it seemed to be gesturing above its dead bond brother.

Shepard finally realized what the hunter was doing, "Be respectful, I think its some sort of prayer for the dead."

Shepard, Liara, and Joker stood to the side, waiting for the hunter to finish. They all had their weapons held at the ready.

When the alien finished its monologue it turned to the three members of Shepard's squad. It pointed to Shepard with its cannon arm, and gestured to its companion.

Shepard had no idea what the hunter was asking him, so he voiced a guess and hoped the alien could understand him, "You want me to speak for him?"

The alien's voice rumbled again, this time Shepard could make out a word, though it was barely understandable through the deep rumbling voice,

"Yes."

ooooooo

_AN: A ha, now we have more members of the squad... including someone really, really, tall._

_I had a bit of trouble writing the first bits of this chapter, but once I got to the last two sections it finally started rollin. Hope you enjoyed it.  
_

_I probably will update this story once more before reach comes out. I want to find out how bungie lets noble team live/die before I write much more. They don't have infinity ward's reputation for killing off characters, but at the same time spartans are a bit over powered for what I'm trying to do in this story. That and I like the idea of the chief having been the last spartan, lost in the last battle of the war... etc. It has sort of a poetic thing to it. I got to say, I hate how they retconned Johnson into being a spartan I, it was better when he was a bad ass human._

_Also, I still have to make a few decisions on the order of events... If anyone doesn't mind spoilers I would appreciate some input._


	9. Chapter 9

_AN: Took a long time to work up this chapter. Between trying to get to lt. Colonel in Reach, dozens of projects and complicated homework assignments, hanging out with friends, and just plain writer's block, this took a long while to get done._

ooooooo

Shepard looked at the tall alien, wondering if the hunter was joking. He looked at the remains of the first hunter, trying to think of something to say. A human wouldn't ask someone he just met to speak at his brother's funeral, obviously hunters were very different. He tried desperately to think of everything he knew about hunters, he remembered the speculative ONI reports on hunter psychology. He remembered something about them pausing mid-battle to recite poetry, and how they simply ignored the other races, to the point of trampling them if they got in the way. Other than that all he knew was that they were big and scary. Shepard had literally no idea what the hunter wanted him to say or why.

"This seems a little strange to me. Still, I guess you hunters are pretty strange if I believe all the ONI reports," Shepard decided to say something simple and to the point. He figured if the hunters were a culture of warriors they might appreciate it, "I did not know this hunter before he died… but he saved my life in order to help defeat the covenant, a noble cause."

Shepard glanced at the towering hunter to see if there was any reaction. The alien only looked back impassively. Shepard stepped back from the dead hunter's body. The other still living alien nodded in an almost human fashion.

"Okay, so you made another alien friend... keep this up and we can start our very own zoo!" Joker cracked the joke, oblivious to the giant alien standing next to him.

He nearly had cause to regret the joke. The hunter turned and took a step towards the pilot, raising its cannon arm. Joker backed up in a near panic, hastily fumbling for his weapon.

"Easy now," Shepard said to the hunter, "it's just a joke."

The hunter didn't even turn to face him, but rumbled something Shepard couldn't quite make sense of, though it almost sounded like English.

Joker had his grenade launcher out and pointed at the hunter, "What'd he just say?"

A deep rumbling laugh came from the alien in response.

"Now I feel vaguely insulted, and I'm not sure how." Joker safed and slung the grenade launcher behind his back.

Shepard grinned at the pilot's misfortune, and then his expression became serious, "I don't hear that phantom anymore." He looked to the sky, seeing only swirling dust. Shepard turned his attention back to the hunter, "So, what do I do with you then?"

The hunter rumbled a response, but again Shepard didn't understand any of the words. He looked to Liara and Joker, but they shook their heads. "So, are you going to work with us?" The hunter nodded its head; so far the alien seemed to understand English so Shepard took the gesture to mean the same thing it would to a human. The alien continued speaking in its own language, oblivious to the fact that it wasn't being understood.

"Isn't it nice talking to a hunter instead of running around in circles screaming?" Joker unpolarized his helmet and gave Liara an exaggerated wink.

Shepard ignored Joker, "I guess I'll take that as a yes… I suppose you understand English?" Another nod from the hunter, "Okay, then did you see a zealot and another alien, almost human? Or did you kill them?"

The hunter turned to face into the storm. It lifted its cannon arm and pointed into the swirling dust.

"Then lead the way." Shepard gestured with an arm and fell into step behind the walking tank, Joker and Liara followed close behind. Shepard flipped off his external speakers and motioned for Joker to do the same. "What do you think?"

"About what commander? Working with a hunter that's probably killed dozens of our people here on reach? Working with a zealot that had done even worse? Being stuck on reach with no way off, and possibly no way to contact our rampant AI who may or may not help us anyway?" Joker took a deep breath, "Because I'm just peachy with all that."

"How can you accept such things?" Liara interrupted before Shepard could reply, "They killed so many of your people and you don't care?"

"I didn't say I don't care. There's nothing I'd like better right now than to drive my knife to the hilt into some elite's skull. That won't help humanity's situation though…" Joker motioned to the hulking alien up ahead, "We're falling behind… last one there has to buy the drinks!"

Shepard made a mental note to talk to Joker later, or better yet find a psychiatrist. He shrugged his shoulders and followed the two as the hunter led on into the dust storm.

ooooooo

Richard Hall followed the non-covvie aliens through the encampment. A corvette hung ominously overhead, Hall thanked whatever god might have been listening that the covenant were generally stupid and preferred to attack in close combat before bombarding their enemies to rubble.

It was about as much of a disaster of a battle as any fight against the covenant he had seen. Brutes dropping in all over the place, defenders scattered and trying to hold out in desperate pockets. He counted the turians lucky, as there was only a single corvette laying siege to their base.

They eventually came up to a group of turians armed only with sidearms, and whose armor was significantly less worn. High level officers Hall realized.

"I don't have time for it specter, these aliens are pressing everywhere, I have enough trouble just holding their dropships back with portable anti air weapons." One of the officers stated.

"You have less time than you think." Hall interrupted, "We've been fighting these bastards for twenty seven years, if you don't do something about that corvette soon they'll give up on trying to kill you in close combat and just blast this area to ash."

The alien stood up and turned to regard Hall with one hand on his sidearm, "How exactly do you expect me to do that? Guardian lasers do little more than scratch their paint. And every time one of my ships attempts to shoot it, they end up dead."

"Have you tried contacting our planetary command?" Hall shook his head in disbelief at what he was about to suggest, "You bastards might have invaded us without cause, but there is something to the old saying of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the covenant there?" He pointed a thumb to the corvette hanging overhead. "That belongs to the covenant, a group of races that has already slaughtered billions of us in their religious genocidal war. If they're attacking you now, you can bet they'll hunt your race down next."

"Do you really think it would be that easy? Why would your commanders work with us?"

"I don't know, you'd have to let me try and talk to them," A wraith mortar crashed to the ground nearby, shaking the ground they stood on, "and soon."

ooooooo

Odeg'Delus, once shipmaster of a frigate in the sangheili military, found himself in a situation he wouldn't have even considered less than a month ago, trudging through a planet destroyed by his race, following a human through the ash and dust.

The entirety of his life he had been raised to believe the prophets knew the will of the gods themselves. When he had found out that the prophets had been lying to his people for all those hundreds of years he had expected to fight the prophets, their brute lackeys, and even the other races of their once glorious covenant. Odeg had even accepted that he might have to work alongside the once hated and reviled humans in order to defeat the prophets and their accursed rings. He did not expect to be fighting his fellow sangheili.

The human ahead made a hand signal, and crouched down low to crawl over an ash dune. The unknown alien with the long and likely undeserved name followed suit. Instead of crawling, Odeg crouched and moved forward until he could just see over the lip of the dune.

A large number of his people stood around several vehicles and hastily built shelters. A veritable mountain of emergency rations, human and covenant alike sat under the cover of a pair of damaged shadow transports. Odeg's mandibles curled in disgust, his people after being left behind, were now reduced to scavengers. From his position at the crest of the dune he counted two ultras, a pink armored zealot, a ranger, and a half dozen spec ops soldiers.

He fingered the handle of his sword when he saw the other inhabitants of the camp. Brutes and jackals, traitors and cowardly scum, well suited to the task of scavenging in the blasted ash wastes of Reach. There where a full three dozen of the dishonorable brutes, including a chieftain, and roughly half that number of jackals, all equipped as skirmishers. Their armor was a mix of types, likely the kig-yar had scavenged their equipment from their fallen comrades.

"I will go down there and convince my brothers of the traitorous nature of the brutes." He announced to he two companions.

"Seriously?" The unknown human asked. "Just walk down there and convince a zealot that he should make nice with us? Hell, for that matter why are you fighting with me? Last time I saw an elite he was trying to gut me with a sword."

Tali looked back and forth between the human and Odeg. He ignored the alien's looks and met the humans gaze. "Our race has been condemned to the same fate yours has. Millions of us already lie dead in the halls of high charity."

"Ha!" the human let out a short laugh, "You get a taste of your own medicine and suddenly you want to be friends?"

"It's not that simple." Odeg refuted the human's accusations.

"Isn't it? Nevermind, we have work to do, go ahead and try and talk to the lot, if they don't listen to you, I'll be sure to bury your body someplace nice." The human turned back around and tapped his helmet, activating the zoom feature.

Odeg couldn't tell if the last statement was a joke, so he ignored it and began walking down the dunes.

He didn't get more than a few steps before being noticed. One of the spec ops troopers raised his weapon, "Halt!"

Odeg followed the order, "Take me to your commander trooper, my ship has been destroyed and I have had little rest since. I am glad to see a friendly soldier for once."

Sangheili spec ops weren't stupid, but they were inclined to trust other sangheili. The soldier contacted someone over his comm, likely the zealot in the center of the camp. After a few brief exchanges the elite nodded to the center of camp. "Talk to commander Awel'Limudee. He is in the center of camp." With that the elite stalked back off on patrol.

The camp was small it was only a short while before the occupants noticed him. Odeg took note of the hostile glares of the brutes, and the lazy almost uncaring looks of the kig-yar.

His fellow sangheili looked at him with a measure of resignation. They saw a shipmaster alone among the wastes and assumed, correctly, that he had no ship to escape on.

The zealot walked over to greet Odeg, "Welcome to our camp shipmaster, shame that it isn't under better circumstances."

"The circumstances are worse than they appear."

"I take it the humans came back and stopped the rescue mission then? If they come to finish us off, then I say let them, I could use a good fight!" The zealot gripped his sword handle in anticipation.

"If only it were humans we had to fight." Odeg's reply was calm and instantly drew the zealot's attention as well as the pair of ultras.

One of the two ultra ranked sangheili walked forward, "What are you saying brother? The parasite was defeated when the demon destroyed the sacred ring."

Odeg made sure to activate his radio before speaking so that the other elites on patrol would hear his words. "It is not an easy message to bring, but we have been betrayed… the entire sangheili race has been declared heretics, by the high prophet of truth himself." Odeg's words stunned his fellow sangheili.

The zealot was the first to recover from his confusion, "Lies, you cannot speak the-"

The zealot's words were cut off by a gravity hammer smashing into his skull. Odeg and the other two elites were sent flying through the air by the impact. Odeg rolled to his feet sword in hand. He looked towards the brute chieftain who contemptuously kicked away the zealot's remains.

The brute started laughing, "So the hierarchs have finally made their move… took them long enough. I will enjoy killing your kind after so long under your heel." The brute took a few practice swings with his hammer at the empty air. "Kill the heretics!"

Odeg began backpedaling from the brute, knowing his sword would do him little good, except to take the chieftain with him to the grave.

"What's the matter _shipmaster_?" The brute sneered at his title, "Scared?"

Odeg ignored the taunt and looked at his plasma pistol; he barely had any charge left in the sidearm. He shot the weapon until it ran dry. The chieftain merely laughed; the brute's shields hadn't even dropped.

A swing of the chieftain's hammer sent a crate tumbling his way, and he rolled to avoid the projectile. Odeg was about to consign himself to a close range duel, where the brute's hammer could cripple or kill him even if it missed. Fortunately for him, his radio came to life.

To his surprise it was the human's voice that he heard, "Hey goldie! There are a few crates to your right, make your way there, unless you want Mr. Hammer there to splatter you all over the ground."

Odeg continued backpedaling from the brute, in the direction indicated by the human. When he judged himself close enough he dived into a roll and ended up behind the weapons crates. His two allies, the human and the alien were lying down in the ash, weapons at the ready.

The brute came around the crates and received two shotgun blasts to its chest. The chieftain's shields dropped. The human came up to his knees and continued firing. The other alien fired from her prone position on the ground. The two shotguns punched large fist sized holes into the brute's chest. Purplish red blood pored out over his armor. The chieftain was tough though, and its armor had absorbed most of the small pellets. It roared in anger.

The roar was quickly cut off in a gurgle. The brute clawed at its throat where a knife now protruded. Odeg seized the opportunity; he drove his sword deep, and yanked it out sideways, killing the brute finally.

"Thank you human and you Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," He said nodding at each in turn, "We should not stand here idle; there are more brutes to kill."

ooooooo

Shepard continued to jog behind the massive bulk of the hunter. He still didn't know the thing's name, and doubted it was pronounceable if he did. As the group crossed the ash covered wasteland of reach he began to wonder if they were even headed in the right direction. The hunter could have easily misunderstood his instructions; at least he thought it might have, honestly he didn't really know how the hunter's mind worked.

His thoughts were broken as he heard the distant rumble of far off explosions. "Let's move people!" Shepard broke into a light jog, following behind his team. They got to a particularly steep dune, Shepard, Liara and Joker had to holster their weapons in order to crawl hands and knees up the hill, the hunter powered up the slope, its heavy frame digging out footholds in the loose ash dune as it walked. Shepard moved away from the hunter's path, its passing had stirred up the ash and made it hard to crawl up the slope.

He finally came to the crest, Liara crouched beside him, and Joker had ended up several dozen yards to his right. The so far nameless hunter… had charged right into the brutes. It swung its shield back and forth while firing its cannon into groups of the aliens.

"Concentrate on the skirmishers!" He yelled out to his two companions. Mimicking his own words, he pulled his assault rifle from behind his back and lined up a burst on one of the aliens. Four rounds blew the armored jackal's head apart and sent it into a somersault. He noticed a brute armed with a needle rifle attempt to flank around the hunter. A blue glow surrounded the offending alien and lifted it into the air. Before Shepard could finish it off, another blue blast hit it and sent the brute flying off into the distance.

Down in the alien's camp, the elites were regrouping, four spec ops elites led by an ultra stood up from their cover and began rushing the distracted brutes, firing their plasma weapons the whole time. The ranger triggered his jump pack and landed behind an unsuspecting brute. The specialist stabbed an energy blade into the brute's neck.

He noted Odeg and Tali in another section of the battlefield fighting a small group of skirmishers, that battle ended quickly, with some sort of stung grenade from Tali allowing Odeg to finish them off with his energy sword.

It wasn't completely one sided, a pair of skirmishers armed with needlers circled around one of the spec ops troopers near the rear, eventually filling the larger alien with enough projectiles that he exploded in a messy pink colored cloud, three more bodies of dead elites lay around the battlefield, including an ultra.

Shepard fired several long bursts at the skirmishers, one of them dropped, the other leapt away, its gun arm hanging limply at its side. Plasma fire forced him to duck down behind the dune, a quick glance showed a half dozen skirmishers and half that number of brutes charging up the dune at him. He chucked a frag and ran to the side after making sure he wasn't visible from the other side of the dune, Liara followed close behind. Joker seemed busy looking for a good place to launch a grenade without friendly fire; Shepard tapped the pilot on the shoulder and pointed behind him, where the brutes and skirmishers were cresting the dune.

Joker nodded and launched a grenade in their direction. It was nearly perfectly aimed. Two of the brutes and three of the skirmishers jerked and rolled down either side of the dune, limp and obviously dead. Shepard didn't see the other three jackal scouts, but the remaining brute swayed on his feet and began to aim his spiker. Shepard didn't let him. Ten rounds tore the alien apart and sent it to join its comrades in hell.

Twenty two rounds left; Shepard aimed down into the camp, and saw the sangheili and hunter mopping up the remaining brutes. A human in standard army kit walked up to a bleeding and badly injured brute, finishing off the alien with a shotgun blast.

The ranger from earlier began walking up behind the army soldier, energy blade in hand. Shepard nearly smacked himself; Odeg might have run across these elites and convinced them to fight the brutes, that didn't mean they would accept that humans were no longer their enemies.

He brought his rifle up and hoped he had enough ammo left to take down the elite. Thankfully he didn't need to open fire. Odeg quickly stepped in behind the unknown soldier, energy sword brandished. The ranger didn't back off, the other elites began to walk up behind him, their weapons trained on the zealot. The army soldier and Tali stepped up behind Odeg, their shotguns at the ready.

Shepard motioned for Joker and Liara to follow him down into the camp. They walked up behind the elites in the middle of their conversation.

"You would work with the enemies of our covenant?" the ultra demanded of Odeg.

"They are not enemies, the oracle itself works with the humans, it speaks in their language and follows their commands." Odeg countered. "Were it not for the human's aid halo would have destroyed us all."

"Lies spread by a heretic." One of the spec ops accused.

"Are you calling your own arbiter a heretic?" Shepard picked that time to interrupt. "I thought that rank meant something to the sangheili."

Only the two elites at the rear reacted, making sure to keep guns trained on both groups.

The ultra responded to Shepard's accusation, "What would you know human?"

"That's the reason I'm here, instead of back on earth fighting the brutes. I stayed behind so our prowler could travel to earth with your arbiter on board. He knows the truth, and he plans to make it right. You might not want to hear it, but your religion is a lie, made by the prophets to make you their willing slaves. Do you want to end up like these brutes? So deluded by their faith they'll kill their own brothers in arms?" Shepard pointed his rifle at the ground with one hand and pointed with the other. As if to emphasize his point the massive form of the hunter walked up behind him and rumbled something in its own language.

The elites gripped their weapons nervously, unsure of what to do, and obviously contemplating a suicidal last stand.

"You do not need to die for this honor-less cause." Odeg stated, "Come with us, we journey to the human homeworld, to put an end to the lies of the prophets and the traitorous brutes."

"If they speak the truth," the ranger began, "Then it would be foolish of us to fight here when our sons and families, even sangheilios itself are threatened by the brutes."

"Are you suggesting we work with heretics and filth such as humans?" one of the spec ops soldiers questioned.

"Are they?" The ultra responded in turn, "Think of how many times our forces have been horribly bloodied by the humans on the ground, and of how determined their resistance was when they fought for this planet. How many of our ships died simply to achieve orbital superiority? I'm starting to think the prophet's betrayal goes back much further than simply when they told the brutes to kill our brothers."

Joker chose that moment to but in, "If we're going to fight, let's get on with it already, if not, let's hurry up and get this over with, I'd rather fight some brutes than sit here talking with you lot about battles past. So call in your phantom and let's all fly up to our ship will yah?"

"Your soldier speaks well, but the brutes pilot our phantom. I do not know if they have heard of what has happened here, but if they have they will likely only venture near to attack us." The ultra placed his weapon on his back, "I fear even with a hunter fighting with us, we will not be able to easily destroy a phantom."

Shepard thought the problem over for a few minutes. He turned to the army soldier, "I take it you're lieutenant colonel Rodriguez?" A nod from the soldier, "Good, how did you originally broadcast that message? We might be able to get in touch with our AI, and find another way off this rock."

Rodriguez, seeing that the elites were no longer pointing their weapons at him, also placed his shotgun away, "There's a bunker not too far from here, I can't get too far in, requires a hell of a lot more clearance than I've got, seems to be an ONI research facility of some kind. NavSpecWeaps, you know the really high level stuff. In the emergency situation I was 'allowed' access to the station's comm system, its got enough juice to punch a signal to orbit."

"Then that will have to be our next destination," Shepard turned to the elites, "Assuming you are in agreement?"

The ultra nodded, "The sooner we leave this planet, the better."

ooooooo

A lone asari sat sipping a drink in a bar on Illium. Not the most uncommon sight. The only thing unusual was the furtive glances she cast at anyone who walked into the bar. Also not an uncommon sight on Illium in particular, but it did tell the salarian walking into the bar that he had finally found his target.

The salarian walked over to the bartender, ordered a pair of drinks, and sat down in front of the nervous asari.

As soon as he sat down the woman began talking, "Are you my contact?"

The salarian smiled internally, "No, I'm with the STG, we want to ask you a few questions captain Lantea." He not so subtly indicated other salarians lounging around the bar. In truth they weren't STG, but the salarian reputation worked wonders on the asari freighter captain. She grabbed the proffered drink and took a long sip.

"So, why is the STG after me? On an asari world no less. I didn't think I pissed anyone but Saren off; still don't know why he's after me if I only lost a scientist and a quarian."

"That is not why we are here. The relay you went through to reach that world, did you know that it had been activated not a week prior to you travelling through it?"

The asari leaned back and crossed her arms, "No I didn't, it's not like just using a relay at the edge of the terminus systems is illegal."

The salarian sipped at his own drink before continuing, "I wasn't finished, less than a day after you went through that relay a group of pirates also traveled through, followed closely by a turian hierarchy patrol fleet."

"I wasn't helping out pirates if that's what you're asking; my ship and crew's activities have always been on the right side of the law." The asari started sounding more defensive.

"Regardless of your ship's questionable activities, that wasn't the most interesting traffic through relay 314. Only a day later an entire turian battle fleet traveled through, including a dreadnaught." The asari shifted uncomfortably. Letting the STG operative know that she knew something about what might have happened to that fleet. "Imagine the council's surprise when only the barest handful of those ships returns from that relay. We know you visited at least one planet on the other side of that relay. We would very much like to know what you learned on the other side, and why you thought it was so important to leave that you left behind the daughter of a very powerful matriarch, a person who was also it seems very closely watched by a council specter."

The asari started talking, slowly at first. She guessed, quite correctly, that she would have an easier time of it if she just went ahead and told the STG what they wanted to know, "It was just a ship graveyard. A few dozen cruisers and dreadnaught sized ships without any eezo; all floating about a planet that looked like it had been nuked into oblivion. Doctor T'soni wanted to take a look at it, but my quarian mechanic started babbling something about some of the debris being recent."

The salarian interrupted the story, "But you figured you had time to look around and loot the place since everyone else had gone and killed each other."

The asari nodded, "That, and there might have still been prothean ruins on the surface of the planet, we probably should have left as soon as we saw the bodies on that station."

"Bodies?" The salarian asked, genuinely curious. The captain was being unusually cooperative; it made him feel more confident that he could find out what exactly was behind relay 314. The turian fleet had mission reports from their initial invasion of the planet, and the battle data from the fleet engagements, but little else.

"Yeah, lots of 'em. Two different species fighting over that station for some reason. That's when a pair of dreadnaughts showed up in system and started launching fighters. The shuttle tried to make it out, but they blew it to pieces before it could even get out of the hangar bay. We made for the relay right after that."

The salarian blinked in surprise, "Two dreadnaughts? Do you know how large they were?" The operative knew that the turians had engaged two dreadnaughts during their one sided engagement, dreadnaughts wielding impressive shields, directed energy weapons, and that were several times larger than a citadel standard dreadnaught.

"Not off the top of my head, one was bigger than the other is all I remember."

The salarian stood up from his seat, "Good bye captain, if you're running from a specter, I wouldn't recommend omega, know from experience only the dumb criminals go there, and usually get stabbed in the back before you can shoot them."

"Yeah… thanks…"

_AN: Now to clear a possible questions before they get asked, no those new elites are not going to be a part of the 'squad' They'll be on the crew, at least until they get to earth._

_Feedback is appreciated._


	10. Chapter 10

_AN:Long delay, school, blah blah blah_

ooooooo

Two salarians stood just outside a battered looking frigate, conversing in low tones, mostly so electronic bugs would have a harder time understanding them. They didn't worry about anyone passing by because there were none in this thoroughfare. A few operatives in very authentic looking, but very fake eclipse uniforms made sure of that. Very few people dared to bother eclipse soldiers on Illium.

"Is that all you found Lieutenant Ganto?" The salarian with an odd green coloring asked the other.

"All I could Captain, the freighter captain was using substandard probes and fled at the first sign of trouble. I didn't find out much more than the coordinates from her ship's computers." The other more normally shaded salarian brought up his omni-tool. What little I did find suggested that this planet was originally held by the humans, not the group using directed energy weapons. However the planet appeared to have suffered catastrophic damage, I would guess that little life survives planet side. The two dreadnaughts that attacked the freighter were likely there on a patrol in force or maybe it is a standard deployment for those races."

"Hmm and how are we supposed to sneak in while a pair of dreadnaughts hovers nearby?" The green skinned captain asked.

"If we approach from the far side of the planet and latch on to a piece of debris we could alter its course slightly, allowing for an observation of the dreadnaughts and the debris field from a position of relative safety. Though captain, if I may, why are we making a recon on this planet and not Shanxi where the turians got hit?"

"Politics mostly, though there's something to be said about gathering as much information as possible about potential enemies and allies." The salarian captain began walking up the boarding ramp to the frigate, "Assemble the team; we will be leaving soon."

The salarian captain's omni-tool beeped, he opened the interface and saw a message from his current superiors, the council. More accurately, an experienced military officer from C-sec, running this operation. The individual races' militaries could suffice to deal with most threats, but the reports that had come back from relay 314 had the council worried. They had pulled together any resource they could get their hands on. After all it wasn't everyday that the turian navy got its cloacae handed to them.

Which of course led to his STG team being assigned to council control. The captain marshaled his thoughts and read the message. He grimaced as he did so, and turned to look back down the alley. A few minutes later he saw the slim form of an asari walk up to him; she was dressed in simple civilian clothes, but hefted a large duffel bag with her.

"Captain Kirrahe I presume? My name is Nassana Dantius. The council wants a diplomat on the mission, I'm your diplomat."

Kirrahe's eyelids flickered several times in irritation, he didn't want to baby sit an asari diplomat on what should be a simple scout mission. If the mission went according to plan they wouldn't even be seen by the inhabitants of the target system. Still it wouldn't do to sour their relationship right at the start. "Yes… Have you been briefed on the mission?"

"A little, they wouldn't tell me much, but I'm to help with negotiations in case someone decides to talk instead of shoot. Don't worry though, I've served as a commando for a few years, I can pull my own weight in a fight." She hefted her bag over her shoulder after shaking hands. "This your ship?" She asked with a measure of incredulity in her voice.

Kirrahe felt his irritation spike a little at the tone of her voice. Unfortunately she, ironically, did not seem overly diplomatic. He could already tell this mission would be more difficult than originally intended.

ooooooo

General Williams, commander of all UNSC assets on Shanxi, stood over a holotable. The map showed marines and army soldiers trying desperately to hold the covenant back from one of the planet's cities. There were enough archer missile silos to keep the corvettes from moving in and leveling the city outright, but thousands of covenant troops had already slipped in past the perimeter and there simply weren't enough troops to hold back the main covenant push and defend the inside of the city from roving packs of brutes and jackals.

Williams balled his hands into fists and smacked the table out of frustration. There was just nothing he could do. Like every other battle with the covenant he was doomed to fighting as long as he could hold out. Every single slipspace capable transport had left the planet as soon as the prowler assigned to the system failed to report in. They were running to one of the remaining inner colonies. Williams didn't know which of the handful of other surviving worlds they would travel to. He wouldn't have boarded the transport even if he wasn't needed here. He had grown up on Shanxi and was determined to stand and fight for his planet.

The covenant didn't make it easy though, even as he watched part of the defenses surrounding the city crumpled and covenant contacts poured in through the breach.

An aide tapped him on the shoulder, "Sir, call for you, from a lieutenant Richard Hall, of the prowler _To Kill a Mockingbird_. He's calling from contact point alpha."

Williams frowned; contact point alpha was where the invasion had started, right by capitol city. Communications from that battle were sketchy at best; the covenant assault carrier had shown up right as reinforcements made it to the capitol city. What reports he had gotten suggested a different covenant race than those ONI had given out reports on.

The General looked back at his aid and nodded, "I'll take it in my office."

Williams stood behind his desk and took the call after shutting the door. The fuzzy image of a prowler crewman flickered into view, stabilizing and becoming clear. The man was still wearing his armor; a few days worth of beard and a plethora of scratches and small cuts completed the picture. The lieutenant saluted, and Williams returned the salute, "Situation Lieutenant?"

"POW technically sir, you probably won't believe it, but they aren't covenant. In fact at this time their landing zone is under attack by a corvette. They've got about a dozen troopships, maybe a few thousand troops, pinned down by that covie ship. The brutes are trying to take them out on foot. Corvette isn't doing anything but keeping them from running right now. Figured you might have a few longswords lying around?" The spook gestured behind him and an alien walked into view. "General Williams, this is General Septimus, commander of the… 5th Expeditionary fleet?"

Williams smirked; he caught the message in the spook's earlier statement. A few thousand more civilians could be evacuated off planet. That was assuming he could take control of their ships. Knowing time was of the essence he quickly weighed his options. He could do nothing, save his strength and bleed the covenant as long as possible, or he could make a gamble, send out his last longswords to take out the attacking corvette, use those fighters to keep the aliens from running and maybe, just maybe get a few more human souls off planet. It was a gamble, the lieutenant could be lying, it could be a covenant trap, the aliens could leave the longswords in their dust and run away, he might not be able to take their vessels from them. Many things could go wrong, but then again he didn't really have anything to lose.

Wouldn't hurt to talk to the alien general before trying anything though…

Despite being obviously non-human, it didn't look nearly as alien as any other covenant race. The alien nodded and spoke, a strange flanging sound accompanying the words, "General, I have to say, when I was ordered here I didn't expect any of this."

Williams scowled, "Assuming you aren't covenant, you did invade one of our colonies without provocation. Karma just bit you in the ass."

His blunt statement didn't faze his opposite number, "Your ship was poking around a mass relay. My superiors in the hierarchy might have overreacted to that, but my job is to follow orders not question them."

Williams leaned back from the video screen, "And my duty is to save as many souls as I possibly can, failing that, to make the covenant bleed." He leaned forward again, "Longsword fighters and Shortsword bombers will be en route within the hour, I trust you will accept their offer of escort to our lines?"

To the alien's credit he saw immediately what Williams was saying, Williams couldn't be sure, but he assumed a scowl passed over the alien's face, "Well, it would seem I have little choice. Hopefully we will last another hour."

ooooooo

Tali followed along behind Shepard and the human called Rodriguez. They walked as part of a much larger group, the six sangheili, the other human, Joker and Liara. The massive hunter, the one that Shepard had somehow convinced to switch sides, ploughed their path through the ash dunes.

Rodriguez started up a conversation "So, what's your story? You aren't covenant, that much is obvious, but you aren't human either. Tell me your fleet is waiting around to give it to the brutes?"

"No, the migrant fleet isn't anywhere near here, and I doubt the council would help if they've even heard of this sector of space, more likely they would just try and blockade the mass relay leading into this sector of space." Tali replied.

"Council? Migrant fleet? You're speaking Greek to me."

Tali frowned, not recognizing the saying, "Am I going to have to give a history lesson to everyone I meet?"

"Right… never really thought of it that way, suppose it would be a pain to explain the history and back story of the United Nations Space Command Army every time I met someone." The human's visor didn't polarize like the armor worn by Shepard and Joker, and she could see him smiling behind it. "That would be a pain in the arse."

Liara dropped back and joined the conversation, "This probably sounds odd and a bit off topic, but did this planet have any ancient alien ruins? We would call them prothean if that helps."

"What is with aliens and ancient ruins of dead races?" Shepard asked no one in particular.

"She is an archaeologist Shepard, it's kind of expected." Tali looked at Liara, "Though, I'm kind of curious too, that was the original reason we were out here."

Shepard shrugged, "I dunno, if there was it would probably be under section III's control anyway."

"I know," The white armored Sangheili said from up ahead, "This world like many human worlds is rich in the artifacts of our lords. Trying to secure one such artifact is why we ended up stuck here."

Tali frowned underneath her mask. It was bad enough when hanar went on and on about the enkindlers, but they were relatively harmless and uncommon. These Sangheili on the other hand were vicious combatants, stronger than a krogan and extremely aggressive, but they didn't seem nearly as religious as the hanar. Of course, she already had plenty of proof of what their religion drove them to do. She looked around at the blasted landscape of what was once a living planet.

She snapped out of her thoughts when Liara started speaking again, "Artifacts on all the worlds controlled by the humans? Prothean artifacts are extremely rare, only a few dozen worlds out of the hundreds known to council space have even a small prothean outpost."

"That is surprising…" The sangheili officer replied, "It is said that our lords' empire stretched the galaxy, and that they left behind their artifacts in order to lead the faithful in their footsteps; to find the sacred rings, and begin the great journey anew."

"All the prothean relics I have explored have been generally buried or in out of the way places. In fact all the evidence I have found makes it seem as though something wiped out the protheans, and systematically tried to destroy all evidence of their existence. I had not thought that they may have tried to purposefully erase their existence." Liara brought a hand to her chin in thought.

Tali was about to interrupt, but Shepard place a hand on her shoulder and motioned her to be quiet. She shook her head, apparently even after thirty years the humans still didn't know exactly why they were being attacked. It just seemed unfair, thirty years of death and destruction and they didn't even know why. Tali began to feel an unexpected emotion… pity. She inwardly laughed at the notion, a quarian feeling pity for another race? It seemed ridiculous.

The Sangheili with the large translucent visor continued the conversation, "If what you say is true human," He addressed Liara as a human, neither Tali nor Liara bothered to correct him, at least not right away, "That would mean that our lords… left their technology for the humans to find, as well as us. I'm starting to think that the prophets did not betray us, instead they betrayed the gods themselves." The soldier shook his head, "To think… that heretic Sesa'Refumee may have actually been spouting some truth after the destruction of the first ring."

Tali sighed; not really understanding what the sangheili were talking about, the conversation was hard to follow. Liara, on the other hand, even with the face concealing mask looked as if she was hanging on every word. Finding another species that knew the locations of prothean artifacts and had their own theories on that extinct race must have been a dream come true for the scientist.

To Tali, however it quickly became boring. Luckily they arrived at the bunker in question after only a few more minutes, during which the archaeologist rambled on excitedly while the soldiers mostly ignored her.

Tali stood in front of the door, which at this point was a melted twisted mess. She looked up at the massive… hunter, as Shepard had called it. Tali wasn't quite sure yet if it was any more intelligent than a varren, it had a gun, yes… but only the sangheili seemed to understand it, and even then only vaguely. The alien rumbled something in its language.

Odeg walked forward, "He says his weapons might still open the doors."

"Please tell him not to shoot it again… It looks like the hinging mechanism might be damaged… I don't know if this door will open normally." Tali shook her head, "Maybe if I had a few more tools, and more time than how long the filters on my suit can keep squeezing oxygen from this air…"

"Nah, they're fake hinges, the hunter didn't do much more than fuse the edges of the real door to the sides. I remember that from my stay here. Wouldn't have the real deal on the outside of a bunker now would you?" Rodriguez walked up to the edge of the door and ran a hand along the outline, peering into the cracks left by the melted metal. "Yeah, we built these things tough, take a bit more than a fuel rod gun to knock them out." He held out a hand to Odeg, "Your sword please?"

"My sword?" Odeg stood up straighter; an expression Tali was beginning to realize signified surprise, "For what purpose? That weapon is a relic passed down from shipmaster to shipmaster."

"Yeah," Rodriguez turned to look at the sangheili, "It's also really good at cutting things, I should be able to get this door open with it, and without destroying the internals of the door so it doesn't seal permanently shut."

Odeg looked like he was going to argue, violently, he held the hilt in his hand, and had a tight grip on the weapon before he finally let out a breath and handed it to the human.

"Thank you; now… let's get this door open."

Tali stepped back and watched the human get to work. The plasma blade was damn efficient at cutting through the thick metal holding the door shut. She found herself thinking about its use as a tool on the fleet and rolled her eyes, remembering the dead bodies chopped to pieces that were left anytime she had seen Odeg in action. That sword might be an efficient tool, but that was definitely not its primary purpose.

She soon found herself in a bunker, feeling oddly at home. It was probably the crowded feeling she got from standing among the rather large sangheili in a room made for humans, the hunter was waiting outside of course, but the room was still crowded. Joker shut the inner door and removed his helmet, coughing a little in the swirling ash left inside the bunker.

"Well, that was a fun little trip, we should do it again real soon," The human smiled at his own joke.

Tali noted that the elites, and strangely Liara had not seemed to get the joke; they stared at the human pilot with blank looks on their faces.

"Tough audience eh?"

Tali shook her head at the pilot. "No, just a bad comedian."

The three humans laughed at her statement, she crossed her arms and stared them down. Shepard seemed to take the hint, though as he took off his helmet he was still smiling.

"Alright Rodriguez, where is this comm relay, I need to contact Artemis." The newest human directed Shepard to a computer along the back wall.

Tali found herself with nothing to do, so she explored the interior of the bunker, taking note of the archaic looking computer systems and large gun rack, while ignoring the stares directed her way by the Sangheili. Eventually one of them spoke up, "You are not human are you?"

She turned to face the elite, "Wasn't that obvious?" She asked, waving her three fingers in front of her.

"Not as much as you might think," The hulking alien replied, he held up his hand as well, displaying four fingers on the limb, two of which appeared to be opposable thumbs. "Though I admit, in close proximity the differences are much more obvious." After an awkward pause he spoke up again, "So, how did your race come to be allied with the humans?"

"We're not, as far as I know I'm the only quarian to ever see a human, didn't you hear this when we were discussing the topic earlier?" Tali brought up her omnitool and her codex, forgetting that the sangheili didn't possess one.

"I joined the conversation late if you remember, I only heard of a council."

"I have a codex here on my omnitool… oh, right, I forgot, you don't have an omnitool do you? Of course not," Tali sighed, "Do you want a short explanation or do you want to wait for the longer one?"

Before the Sangheili could reply Shepard called out to her, "Tali, can you work on getting that security door open?"

"Duty calls," Tali shrugged and walked away from the Sangheili. She came up to the door. The only security device seemed to be a small holopad to one side. As she approached it lit up with a grid of glowing lines, "You are not authorized for entry civilian. There is a planet wide emergency in effect, please proceed to the nearest evacuation transport. Warning: Covenant forces are deployed across the planet, seek a military escort."

Tali tapped on her omnitool as a way of thinking. This was obviously a VI, not an AI. That meant it couldn't be reasoned with, but it could be hacked. Unfortunately that task was made difficult as humans didn't use standard mass effect based computer systems. She tried a few different programs, but they either didn't do anything at all, or were rebuffed. Giving up on the software approach she grabbed a small tool from her belt and began taking off the holopad. Sending the right signal would probably get the door open.

A thought struck her then… all she needed was the right tool. She waved the Sangheili ultra over, "You have a sword right? Can you cut through the door?"

The alien soldier chuckled as he pulled out his sword, "The simple solution?"

"Whatever works," Tali responded and backed away. Four careful slices later and the Sangheili caught the door as it fell inward, lowering it to the ground with a clang. Tali walked into the next room almost happily. It appeared to be a research lab, one that had been evacuated in a hurry. Bringing up one of the computers she was disappointed to learn that it had been wiped as the researchers had fled.

There were a handful of pieces of armor scattered about on workbenches. They were similar to the ones Shepard and Joker had been wearing when they first met on the station. Strangely the techs hadn't made much of an attempt to destroy any physical evidence, merely the computer files. Here and there pieces of half disassembled parts lay out in the open. What appeared to be crude hand drawn technical drawings and equations lay scattered about the workspace.

She wasn't entirely sure, but the schematics seemed to be for some sort of temporary plasma shield. Others appeared to be for miniature fusion batteries, still others for some sort of artificial muscle system. Fascinated she sat down and began looking through all the notes and drawings. The technology wasn't truly more advanced than Eezo tech, the fusion battery, while it provided six times the power of the contemporary source in her suit, was roughly eight times a bulky. She was so engrossed in her task she didn't notice the commotion in the rest of the bunker until Joker tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped at the touch, earning a laugh from the pilot.

"We've got a ride, someone from something called a special tasks group came here, not entirely sure why, but it sounds like you've got a ride home." The pilot smiled, "They'll get here in an hour, so… you know wrap up here I guess."

Tali's good mood evaporated, she remembered why these humans were so anxious to get back to their world, their race was facing the same fate as hers, if not worse. Tali didn't really know what to say, so she simply didn't say anything, and returned to gathering all the leftover bits and pieces in the research lab, though now in a much more somber mood.

ooooooo

Captain Kirrahe paced the deck of the frigate. It was a salarian design, and as such had the command stations at the center of the craft, along with the control systems. He sat back down in his chair. No point in fretting about what he couldn't change; his crew would tell him if they spotted anything of note in the system.

It was only a few short minutes before their probes finally came within range of the target planet. Everything was as expected, except for the notable lack of any active ships. There were plenty of dreadnaught sized vessels in the debris field surrounding the planet, but none appeared active. Only three vessels appeared as if they could be in working condition, and of those only one was dreadnaught sized, another the size of a frigate, and a third the size of a cruiser, though it had major structural damage. All of them appeared to be human. None were similar in appearance to the unknown aggressors.

Kirrahe leaned back and took in the view of the debris field, watching as the screen updated every few minutes. The field was mostly random, the result of a battle individual pieces of wreckage would drift the way they were moving when the ship they used to be had died, all normalized into an orbit by the planet's gravity.

All the bits of wreckage drifted along these random paths. All except one.

The salarian leaned forward again, "Bring up grid 45.2," It took a probe slightly less than a minute to get into position. The image brought up was that of a large block. It was the dreadnaught identified earlier, a particularly ugly looking vessel bearing the scars of its last battle. Unlike the predatory designs of the turians, or the smooth elegant designs of the asari, this ship was just a slab. A particularly large barrel from a mass accelerator protruded from one end. The ship's surface was covered in smaller weapons emplacements. Every so often the ship was broken up by a landing bay of some kind.

"Ugly to be sure, doesn't have much on the _Destiny Ascension_ I'm afraid." Nassana crossed her arms over her chest, looking far too comfortable in her hard suit than a diplomat on a combat mission should.

Kirrahe suppressed a sigh, and glanced over at the asari diplomat, "Yes aesthetics do not seem important to these humans. However this ship is the only vessel in the field that is maintaining a geosynchronous orbit."

"Survivors then?" The ex commando uncrossed her arms, "Maybe they fought off those other two dreadnaughts."

"Two dreadnaughts with directed energy weapons versus a single dreadnaught that does not appear to even have kinetic barriers? Unlikely." The captain was about to continue when the operative in charge of their scan of the system interrupted.

"Wreckage detected from multiple dreadnaughts, all appear to be the same style as aggressor dreadnaughts. One such wreck is still warm from whatever destroyed it."

Kirrahe ignored the self satisfied smirk the asari shot his way. "Interesting, but where is the other ship?"

The crewman paged through several more displays, "Unknown sir."

"Wait until the human dreadnaught is on the other side of the planet from us then take us in close, avoiding the debris field." The salarian captain leaned back in his chair; it would be several long, boring, hours until they began moving.

The trip was boring, at least for the first two hours.

A beep from his omni-tool brought him out of his bored stupor. A new message… That should have been impossible. They were laying comm buoys behind them true, but those buoys were currently disconnected from the extranet. He looked up, other members of the crew seemed to be getting messages as well, a ship wide broadcast of a message obviously innocuous enough to be routed to every omnitool on the ship. He couldn't think of anyone on the ship that would play such a prank, which left either a ship that went through the relay previously or survivors from Dr. T'soni's ill fated research mission.

He looked to the message again and brought it up on his display, no designated sender, which made it even odder that spam filters hadn't stopped the message.

_Hello,_

_Assuming I haven't misjudged my transmission strength, coding, and such things, and that my guess towards your origins is correct, you are the crew of a small military scouting ship from the citadel species. I have to say, I'm a little surprised that a military vessel would be sent after an archeologist and an engineer, seems a little over the top._

_I suppose I might as well get to the crux of the matter. I'm the acting captain of the Halcyon class cruiser, _Dawn Under Heaven_, and I could use your help. Send a reply to this message to contact me._

_Artemis_

To an observer, Kirrahe would have seemed frozen as if in shock from reading the message, but his salarian mind was racing at a mile a minute. The implications of the message were many, One of them was that the asari researcher was still alive and in contact with the humans. The second was that the humans appeared to be vigilantly watching even dead worlds, and third, by far the most important, humanity already seemed aware of the citadel, which implied even more.

The salarian captain nodded at his comm officer. The man had read the same message and knew what to do.

"Well, it looks like I'll have a job to do after all." The diplomat commented dryly from the back of the command bridge.

Kirrahe was saved from further conversation with the asari as his technician brought up an audio link.

A voice similar to asari, or females of various races came over the bridge speakers, "Ah! I was wondering if you were going to reply to my message. Took you long enough."

Kirrahe checked his omnitool's clock; barely a minute and a half had passed since he first received the message, fast even for a salarian. "Yes, you are the acting captain of a cruiser her in orbit?"

"Well, technically yes, bit insane to consider myself the captain of a cruiser, but it's been a hard past few months. If you want to know which cruiser, it's the only intact one, and the same one you've been trying hard to avoid since you entered the system. Would've worked if I didn't have my fingers in every working bit of tech left in this debris field." The unknown captain seemed to ramble a bit, probably a very junior crewmember forced into the position. Kirrahe made note that what they had initially termed a dreadnaught was called a cruiser by this race.

"You mentioned being in need of assistance?" Kirrahe typed out orders on his omnitool and the crew brought the ship up out of the debris field and over the pole of the planet, into view of the dreadnaught they had been fighting.

"Oh yes, right… your archeologist, engineer and a good portion of my remaining crew were stranded planet side during a rescue operation, they ran into some covenant entanglements. The covenant troops have been dealt with, but their transport was destroyed, and I don't have any more available to pick them up."

Kirrahe had no reason to trust the voice on the line, and he made his sentiments perfectly clear, "Why should I trust you? You could easily have enough troops to storm this ship waiting on hand."

"Well, that would be the problem wouldn't it? Let's see, a gift would be rejected, because I could just take that back, threats would be ignored, you're just out of range. I guess I don't have any proof, well, I suppose I could patch the signal from the bunker they're holed up in to your ship, would talking to the good doctor T'soni do you any good?"

Kirrahe made a motion to cut his microphone, and then turned to the asari diplomat, "What do you think?"

The asari brought a hand up to her chin, "If she is an actor, she plays her role well; besides, they have little to gain from the capture and interrogation of an STG team, too much effort spent for too little gain."

Kirrahe mulled over the situation for a few more minutes before signaling to turn the microphone back on, "We'll talk to the doctor."

"Oh good, I'll get her on the horn right away."

A few minutes passed and a crewman indicated that video was now being included with the message. Kirrahe found himself face to face with an armored human, not the missing asari. The alien's basic form mimicked a male batarian, broad shouldered compared to a salarian; the difference was in the face. It appeared for all intents and purposes to be a tan colored asari, except for the gray around its chin. The human cocked its head at him then stood up from its seat. Right afterwards another sat down, lighter of stature, He assumed a female human.

His assumption was proven wrong as the soldier took off her helmet. It was a she, but it was not a human, but Dr. T'Soni wearing what appeared to be human made armor. He recognized the doctor from his mission briefing, "Dr. T'Soni, I trust you are well?"

"As well as I can be considering the past few days. Fighting covenant, meeting…" The asari began counting on her fingers, "…six entirely new species, who are busy fighting a war," The doctor looked tired, dust and grime stained the armor she wore, "To top it all off, the STG followed me here? Why?"

"Normally we wouldn't be, but right now the council could be looking at war. Whoever those humans are fighting managed to decimate a turian battle group." Kirrahe made sure not to mention that the turian group had been fighting humans at the time. "We need more information."

The camera's position changed to that it tilted upwards, the human from earlier re-entered the frame. "We have plenty of information about the covenant; twenty seven years of war will give you that, but we're about to lose."

Kirrahe frowned at that statement, "I am sorry to hear that-"

Another alien, huge, hunched over, and with a strange four mandible jaw squeezed into the frame on the other side, interrupting him. This one wore thick armor and looked as if it could go toe to toe with a krogan. Sharp teeth lined the insides of its mouth. Strangely his translator worked when it spoke, "You misunderstand the human. If the prophets and their brute lackeys take earth they will also possess the key to halo."

"Halo?" Kirrahe noted the words prophet and brute, apt descriptions for the two aliens in the intercepted communiqué, if that was who they were referring to.

"A forerunner superweapon," The human glanced at the asari, "I think you would call them prothean."

Kirrahe was understandably skeptical, "Do you have proof that such a weapon is still in operation?"

The human shook his head, "Not here, we learned of Halo's existence after we lost this planet. I'm sure the Office of Naval Intelligence had plenty of evidence of its existence, but that's on Earth, which is currently under attack by the covenant."

The other large alien gestured to the human, "I served during the battle for the second sacred ring during the fight for the control room, if your construct can interpret the video log you will have all the evidence needed."

Kirrahe wondered what he meant by construct, but the statement was addressed to the human, so the salarian assumed he would know what the other alien meant. "Then we will be there shortly to pick you up." The human nodded and closed the connection. Kirrahe turned to his crew and began issuing orders. After the ship started moving to the planet's surface he addressed his comm officer again, "Prepare a report to the council, we'll append this video evidence they have and send it off."

Kirrahe turned to look at the asari diplomat, "You seem awfully quiet for a politician."

The asari smirked, "I prefer to talk face to face, but honestly this isn't exactly what I expected. I assumed we would come into contact with the human government, not a few soldiers sitting on a damaged dreadnaught thinking they're about to lose a war against militaristic hanar. This isn't exactly the most conducive situation to acting like a politician."

"True enough, hopefully it won't come to that. Though I have to wonder who the other race we saw in that transmission is," having seen the intercepted transmission from the covenant dreadnaughts he was inclined to agree with Nassana's metaphor of military minded hanar, even if they didn't share any physical characteristics.

"Allies possibly… we don't know anything about either side other than that they're fighting, and at least one side thinks it's on a religious crusade. There's too much speculation, we'll have to simply ask them."

ooooooo

Roughly an hour later their frigate landed on an ash covered platform. The landing struts sank slightly into the swirling dust, but they hit solid ground soon after. He walked down the ramp backed up by several members of his team, assault rifles in hand. Kirrahe noted he was met with a similar reception, Dr. T'Soni stood by the door to a bunker flanked by various other aliens, all except the doctor held their weapons in hand. Three humans armed with unknown weapon types, a quarian with a shotgun held loosely in her hand, four of the larger aliens, each carried a weapon loosely in one hand, to him they might as well have been heavy weapons, but they carried them as if they were sidearms.

The last alien would have been mistaken for a heavy mech except for the odd sway of movement that proved it was organic in nature. One arm ended in a glowing cannon, the other in a shield. Kirrahe wondered idly if that cannon could do enough damage to his frigate to knock it out of the sky. One of the humans walked up and tapped the side of his helmet, clearing the visor. Kirrahe recognized him as the human from the communication. The human stuck out a hand, then cocked his head to the side, "You know I should probably ask how you greet each other before offering a handshake, I'm Commander Shepard United Nations Space Command prowler corps."

Kirrahe nodded, "Captain Kirrahe, Salarian Special Tasks Group," He gripped the human's outstretched hand and shook, "It's close enough to our own greetings."

"So is this your ship or some sort of shuttle? I don't know of a slipspace drive that would work with this small of ship." The human looked up at the frigate taking in the view.

Kirrahe didn't recognize the term slipspace but didn't question the commander, figuring that he would learn soon enough and of course that it would be wisest to keep any technological advantage his race had over these humans a secret. "It's our ship commander, it may not look like much, but it has served my unit well the past few years."

Shepard nodded, "Permission to come aboard then?"

ooooooo

_AN: Finally got through with this chapter, this one was hard to write next one should be easier, but I also have exams unfortunately so won't be able to work on it all that much for the next week and a half_


	11. Chapter 11

_Been a while, last semester of Electrical engineering is a pain_. _Oh well hopefully the next chapter will be done soon, though I wouldn't expect it until after graduation._

ooooooo

_Previous Chapter Summary:_

_After running into a dead end problem fixing the halcyon class cruiser _Dawn Under Heaven_, Shepard and his group have been stranded on Reach while trying to rescue a survivor; they meet up with a group of elites and a hunter, forming a truce to fight a group of brutes surviving on the planet's surface. They are picked up when their AI, Artemis, convinces a STG task force to help._

ooooooo

Shepard stepped aboard the alien's ship, followed by the rest of his growing motley crew of aliens. The hunter, whose name he still didn't know brought up the rear. The walking tank looked cramped in the small cargo bay. The elites likewise looked uncomfortable, their hands hanging loosely near their weapons. Joker and Rodriguez were looking around, somewhat discretely, obviously curious. Joker was eyeing what looked to be a shuttle while the army officer was glancing around the bay. Tali and Liara on the other hand appeared... more relaxed if he had to describe it. A familiar species was probably a welcome sight to the two aliens.

Shepard turned his attention back to the captain of this vessel. He couldn't quite decide if the alien was lizard-like or frog-like, but he definitely looked less human than Tali and Liara. Other than the alien's appearance, the crew's behavior was far too similar to a prowler crew for Shepard's liking; checking the newcomers out, either for weapons or simple curiosity, but instead of staring openly with suspicion like a normal human crew would, they were trying to be discreet about it.

Along with the name special tasks group, Shepard knew he had to be careful. If he had been an alien he knew he sure as hell wouldn't want to be 'rescued' by ONI.

"So… Special Tasks Group?" Shepard began as an icebreaker.

"Yes, salarian intelligence agency; employed by the council for some situations, also assigned diplomat, Nassana Dantius, for mission." The alien waved to an asari standing in the bay. Unlike the salarians this alien was wearing relatively simple clothing. Shepard assumed it was civilian styled, but couldn't be sure.

Shepard nodded as the asari walked up and shook her hand when she offered it, "It's a tad late for a diplomat, but it's a pleasure to meet you." Outwardly he kept a smile on his face, but he subscribed to the old adage of never trust a politician. Diplomats were only a step away from politicians.

The asari diplomat smiled a little too sweetly as she replied. "Hopefully it is not too late; a prothean superweapon would be a grave threat. I'm sure the council would act to keep it out of the hands of the covenant."

"Here's hoping," Shepard's immediate thought was that they would also keep it for themselves. He had enough tact not to say so. Besides, at the moment he did not even know what halo was, beyond the generic briefing given by ONI that anything related to it was to be given precedence over everything, even the Cole protocol if the situation warranted. He had enough tact and common sense not to mention those thoughts.

"Your ship has given us clearance to dock; we will be entering the main docking bay shortly." The salarian captain informed them.

Shepard mentally when over the specs for a Halcyon class' docking capability; a ship the size of the one he was standing on would be a tight squeeze, but it would fit, just barely.

"I hope your pilot knows his stuff, that's gonna be a pretty tight fit." Joker said, echoing Shepard's own sentiments.

What looked like an expression of irritation passed across the salarian captain's face, "Our pilot has been flying military vehicles for six years, and he knows what he's…"

A violent shuddering was suddenly felt through the ship, followed by a heavy impact which sent the assembled aliens and humans sprawling. Shepard saw a few salarians try to climb to their feet; only to be knocked down again as a second harder impact shook the ship. He waited for a twenty count before climbing to his feet and taking out and deactivating the safety on his rifle.

The salarian captain climbed to his feet as well and pressed a hand to a comm device, "Report!"

Shepard couldn't hear the reply, but he assumed it wasn't good. He checked his squad for any casualties. They appeared to be fine; the hunter didn't even look phased by the latest turn of events. He turned back around to see the salarian captain sending several of his soldiers out of the bay and into the ship. The asari diplomat was hurriedly following.

"Knows what he's doing? Sounds like the damn frog-man could use a lesson or two in docking practice." Joker coughed out.

"Crew dead, hostile gunship outside, no time for jokes, open hatch and counter attack, controls damaged," came the rapid reply from the alien.

Shepard wasted no time asking questions, "Hunter! Open the hatch," He didn't know the alien's name, but he did know it understood English at least.

The walking tank spun around and delivered a massive blow with its shield. Covenant grade starship plating met a salarian grade cargo hatch. The hunter stumbled back from the force of its own blow, leaving a massive dent in the hatch. It brought the assault cannon mounted on its arm to bear next, blowing a hole big enough for its bulk in the hatch.

A sudden windstorm picked up in the cargo hold. Shepard crouched low and activated his magnetic clamps in his boots at max power, standard procedure for a massive depressurization. Everyone else in the bay did the same, except one unfortunate salarian who was sent tumbling. Fortunately for the alien, an elite stuck out an arm and caught him with a loud smack.

"Odeg! You and the elites, out the hole." Shepard ordered over the radio. The elites would be better suited to any long falls that might wait for them outside, but now he needed information, "Artemis, situation?"

"Cloaked phantom, unknown number of hostiles, there's an engineer trying to access my systems, cut me out of my own damn ship! They already knocked out long range comms." The AI sounded strained.

Shepard decided not to bother her anymore, "Good luck." He turned his attention back to the bay, Tali, Liara, and some of the Salarians looked pretty shaken. He decided to take the initiative and get things moving, "Enemy gunship outside, grab your weapons and let's move!" Not bothering to see if they were moving he rushed to the hole in the hatch and looked out. The deck was sitting at a thirty degree angle from the salarian ship, and at about a fifteen foot drop. The elites and the hunter had established something of a perimeter, using a few crates and a scorpion tank for cover. Plasma and spiker rounds flew back and forth.

A fifteen foot drop wasn't necessarily lethal, but it could leave him stunned long enough for an enterprising jackal to take a nice easy shot at him while he was recovering. He looked around and saw that the cargo hatch left something of a lip that he could use to slide down a good bit further down to the deck and drop right into cover behind an overturned warthog. Shepard clamped the rifle on his back and slid down, rolling into a crouch behind the 'hog.

The army officer and salarian captain were quick behind him, both wearing their helmets in the vacuum environment. "Roll her over sir, the gun'll come in handy even if she won't drive." Rodriguez said over the comm.

Shepard nodded and backed up a little to get a running start. He and the lieutenant colonel flipped the vehicle over on the second try, just as Joker and a pair of salarians joined them on the ground.

One of the salarians caught an unlucky spiker round in his gut and rolled to a stop on the ground, no longer moving.

"Rodriguez, man the gun," As the soldier clambered up to the gun, he looked around to check the battlefield. They were in a relatively small area, but had plenty of cover in the form of several vehicles, crates, and the salarian ship itself. The only problem with their position was that they had the void of space at their backs, and nowhere to pull back to if pressed.

Either the crash had been relatively soft or the salarian ship was tougher than it looked. The nose had become wedged in one corner along the ground. One 'wing' was resting part way up the hangar wall, and the other was dug into the floor.

The phantom hovered gently near the damaged nose of the ship; it appeared damaged and scarred, not from an impact, but from anti-air fire. Possibly damage sustained earlier in the covenant group's mission. Underneath the covenant dropship a small force of jackals and brutes were holding by a doorway. The phantom's weapons didn't seem to be working; otherwise they probably would have been doomed from the start. Perhaps the pilot had flinched when he found a covenant ship waiting for him in the bay, causing the crash. Shepard decided to worry about what caused the crash later and focused on the battlefield instead.

A blast from the hunter's fuel rod cannon sent most of the defending covenant scattering, where they were picked off easily by Rodriguez on the gun, and combined fire from the elites and salarians.

The phantom started moving towards the last remaining pair of brutes, activating its grav lift as it did so. "Shift fire, the phantom!" Knowing an assault rifle wasn't much use against a phantom he ignored his own orders and fired short careful bursts into the brutes trying to flee. He didn't do much damage, but he slowed down their retreat, which in turn kept the phantom hovering in one place. Just long enough for the hunter to connect a shot with its assault cannon. Armor buckled around one of the phantom's engines, the remaining engine was stressed to keep the damaged vehicle aloft. The dropship's pilot brought the craft lower in an attempt to reduce the strain on its engines. Unfortunately for the covenant pilot the phantom had taken too much damage. The covenant had a distinct lack of safety systems in much of their technology and the pilot either couldn't or wouldn't cut the engine manually, after a few more moments the remaining engine overloaded, blowing the phantom apart and scattering wreckage across the bay.

Shepard kept his rifle trained on the spot where the retreating brutes had been. Knowing how tough the aliens were he wasn't taking any chances. After waiting a couple minutes with no movement from the wreckage he contacted the ship AI again, "Artemis, where's that engineer?" Shepard frowned when he didn't get a response over the comms, "Artemis? Can you hear me?" When he still didn't get a response he turned back to the small group of aliens and humans. "I've lost contact with Artemis, last she reported a covie engineer was hacking into systems on the ship. Hopefully she's still safe, we need to find that engineer and kill it."

"Ship structurally damaged; no chance to leave under own power; will follow your lead," Shepard noticed that the salarian captain seemed to speak faster the more stressed he became.

Shepard brought a hand to his chin to think, "We'll want to split up. Each group will have to have enough firepower to deal with the brutes, and each group will need someone who knows a halcyon class cruiser well enough to navigate." He gestured to the army officer, "Rodriguez! You know your way around a halcyon?"

"No sir, spent most of my time on the big transports not on navy cruisers," the lieutenant colonel answered with a shrug.

"Damn, oh well, two groups. I'll lead one, and…" Shepard looked at his options, An elite he shouldn't trust, and an army officer he had just met. The choice seemed easy; it should have been easy, but something in his gut told him that Rodriguez wasn't the best choice as a leader. Maybe it was the fact that he seemed to be special forces, not standard army, maybe it was the fact that he acted more like an enlisted man than an officer. Whatever the reason Shepard acted on what his gut told him instead of his brain. "Odeg, take your elites, Joker, and Rodriguez with you. You're team bravo. I'll lead alpha, the rest of us." Shepard turned to the salarian commander, "Kirrahe, split your forces, Leave one group to defend your ship, another will travel with me."

Shepard turned to the last member of the group, "Hunter, I don't know your name, and hopefully that's not a problem, but you're with me."

Knowing it wouldn't be understood the massive alien nodded it's 'head' and walked over towards Shepard.

"Alright, let's kick some ass!" Shepard yelled as he racked the bolt back on a fresh magazine.

"Do what with our feet?" Asked a confused Liara.

"Nevermind…"

ooooooo

Lieutenant Hall, so far the only human captured by the turian invaders stood in an officer's private cabin. His temporary holding cell on the turian troopship. They hadn't trusted him enough to let him keep his weapons, and a pair of burly looking turian troopers stood outside at all times, keeping him under guard. The room might as well have been a cell in the brig. No windows, no personal effects, the computer had been shut down. The only thing interesting in the room was Nihlus. The turian specter made for interesting conversation; Hall knew it was probably some variant of good cop/bad cop, but this particular alien was the only one aboard who seemed to actually care about the war and not just getting away from this hellhole. They had already gone over some basic history of the war and the turian race and the citadel alliance.

Nihlus was the first to open the conversation this time, "We both know what's going to happen when we reach your base don't we?"

Hall pulled an oddly shaped chair from behind the small desk and sat down heavily, "Yeah, I suppose we do. Flying through atmosphere with Longsword escort will take a couple hours, but when we get there the general won't just say his farewells and throw confetti as you leave back into space."

The turian remained standing, his face nearly unreadable, "Any troopship leaving will be shot down by your oversized fighters, any troopship setting down will be swarmed with your troops and taken by force. The only problem is that I doubt General Septimus will just let you take his ships and men. You won't be able to take the ship's. They'll scuttle the ships before you can."

Hall leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on the desk. He rubbed his unshaven face thoughtfully, "And General Williams won't back down in the face of that threat. Any chance to get evacuees out will be taken. There are millions of people here, we have a duty to get as many out as possible. Reinforcements won't come, hell Shanxi might hold the last survivors of the human race. They already pulled most of the fleet back to Earth, which means they're expecting an attack. Earth might stand for a while, but the covenant are just too powerful. Hell, the survival of our species might depend on us getting people off world."

"An impasse, your people need our ships, and we will not give them up." The turian specter shook his head and sighed in frustration.

"Selfish bastards…" Hall mimicked Nihlus' motion, when suddenly an idea hit him, "So, Nihlus? What about a compromise?"

"Compromise?" As far as hall could read turian expressions the specter looked skeptical.

"Yeah, like it or not, you have to have plenty of spare bunks and space in these ships. I don't suppose a refugee mission is in your general's orders?" Hall took his feet off the desk and leaned forward again. "Depending on how long your FTL would take to get back to this citadel of yours… you could take a couple thousand civilians if you packed them in here good enough."

"And you would trust your civilians with an unknown alien race?" Nihlus gestured with one talon, "For all you know, I've been lying this whole time and the original goal of this expedition was a massive slave grab."

Hall chuckled, "First of all, you don't have the equipment for that, secondly from what I've seen of your soldiers here, you don't strike me as the type." Hall leaned back again, making himself comfortable, "You know, if you managed to convince this council of yours to come back here with a fleet you might actually save the planet."

"That would be difficult to do, seeing as how a single pair of ships managed to cripple a turian fleet. The majority of the council peacekeeping force is made from turian vessels." Nihlus shook his head, "No, I doubt they would try anything where they didn't have a reasonable chance of succeeding."

"Hmm…" Hall started thinking about how a council fleet would fight the covenant. He knew standard UNSC tactics. They generally involved a nuclear minefield and a few ships worth of sacrificial armor between the warships and covenant plasma. "I don't suppose you or anyone you know knows anything about how much damage your slugs did to the _Lady Luck_? That was the name of the vessel in orbit here."

"Cruiser guns managed to penetrate your vessel's armor, barely. The _Void Hunter_ managed to tear a few holes in your ship's hull." Nihlus said with some caution. Hall figured telling a possible enemy weapon strengths wasn't the most natural thing in the world for the specter.

"Fire rate?" Hall questioned. The _Lady Luck_ had been an older model corvette, designed with the speed and weaponry of a frigate, but the heavy armor of a destroyer. They were of course expensive, and somewhat worthless against the covenant without twin MAC guns. They did have relatively heavy armor though. A few holes in its armor was nothing much compared to the raw power of a MAC gun, but if the turian guns had fire rate there might be a chance of them actually damaging a covenant vessel, provided there were enough of them.

"A typical dreadnaught can send a shell down range once every other second. Cruisers fire at a somewhat faster rate, but their shells are less powerful."

Hall's eyebrows shot up at Nihlus' words, a typical UNSC ship mounted MAC gun could have cleaved through the _Lady Luck_ and kept going, but each MAC gun on a UNSC vessel could only fire once every minute and a half. Some ships like destroyers and cruisers were equipped with two, but the fire rate on a turian gun was still damned impressive. "That might work, though I'd have to give you a crash course in UNSC tactics. Not that they are all that effective, but we've gotten quite a few kills in the past."

Nihlus nodded, "The biggest problem is the fact that our kinetic barriers are almost useless against covenant plasma weapons."

"Yeah, we don't have shields, and just about the only ships that can take a direct plasma hit and keep going are the big cruisers and carriers. Our most effective tactic has always been sacrificial hulls." Hall took a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing, "Covenant plasma torpedoes generally disperse after hitting a target of sufficient mass. So we get as many freighters and stations and other detritus as possible, rig 'em up with either remote control or volunteer crews and use them as ablative armor."

"That would be expensive, it would be hard to convince the council to stick their heads out when they have the taxpayers to worry about."

At hearing that Hall nearly screamed in frustration. He kept it in check, just barely, "Damn it man, there are millions of people still on this world, and they'd be worried about money?"

"That's the way politics work. One more reason I'm glad to be a specter, but then I'm only one man. I don't have a fleet at my beck and call." Nihlus uncrossed his arms and straightened his posture, "I'll give it my best shot at convincing General Septimus and then the Council, but I can't make any promises."

At that the turian specter left the room, leaving Richard Hall alone with his thoughts.

ooooooo

Tali held her shotgun up to her shoulder as she walked down the corridors of the _Dawn Under Heaven_. The ship had been empty compared to a migrant fleet vessel, but there were people that were actually interested in talking to her, a far cry from what usually happened so far during her pilgrimage. Best of all though, knowledge of how a slip space drive worked, courtesy of the information she had dug up would make a wonderful pilgrimage gift. It could severely lessen the fleet's dependence on eezo. They wouldn't have to aim for eezo rich systems every time they went somewhere.

Tali shook herself from her daydream and returned her attention to the corridors of the human ship. At a hand motion from Shepard, Liara, a salarian and her moved into an adjoining room. It was some sort of generator room. Banks of what appeared to be batteries lined the room, probably some form of backup power in case reactor power went down. There didn't appear to be anyone in there. She walked up and down the rows of batteries to be sure. Finding no targets she walked back to the entrance.

Tali nodded at the salarian guarding the door. Before he could nod back though, he was lifted from his feet by an invisible force. There was no biotic glow, which left one option, a cloaked enemy. She couldn't fire with the salarian in the way, so she yelled to Shepard over the comm. She got a blast from the brute's gun in return. With her shields dangerously low Tali ducked behind the battery bank for cover.

She heard the brute fire several rounds out the door, likely using the salarian as a shield against return fire. Thinking quickly Tali ran around the other side of the battery bank, and ran up behind where the brute was holding back Shepard and the rest of the salarians. Tali got as close as she dared, crouched and aimed up towards the brute's head, making sure that any over penetration wouldn't kill the salarian. She pulled the trigger and blew the brute's head off.

The salarian collapsed to the ground, holding his throat as Shepard and the rest of the squad entered the room, their guns trained on the dead brute. "Great job Tali," Shepard congratulated her before pulling the salarian to his feet. The human motioned for the group to head back out of the room, "We're close, one of the main computer systems, I'd bet the engineer is there." He put a hand to his helmet, "Odeg, get your group to my position, I think we've found them."

A few minutes later, they were ready to assault the computer room. The massive hunter stood ready at an oversized freight doorway, ready to smash its way in. Odeg's team of elites stood at the other. When they made their move it was more anti-climatic than expected.

The hunter broke down the hatch, the flying metal hit a brute at random, stunning the beast long enough for the hunter to bring its shield around and smash it into pulp. Odeg's sangheili entered the other side. Odeg and the white armored soldier advanced with swords drawn. The two remaining brutes barely got a shot off before they were impaled.

Tali followed Kirrahe and Shepard into the room, shotgun raised and ready for any more cloaked brutes.

The salarian was looking closely at the two sangheili, curiosity evident, "Energy blades?"

Shepard interrupted before the salarian could question further, "No time for questions, the engineer is still around here somewhere."

"Couldn't one of the brutes have been the engineer?" Tali asked, confused as to why they were still looking around in an empty room.

"No, it'll be another covenant species, called Huragok, we call 'em engineers. They look like floating bags of gas. Nasty looking, but non-hostile. All they do is float around and fix things. ONI has standing orders for capture, or deserter retrieval. They still aren't sure if the things are even sentient." Shepard responded a bit tersely, distracted by his search.

"That might have been useful to know before hand." Tali crossed her arms and leaned back on her heels. Quickly she switched her radio to a second comm channel, "And I'm wondering when you are going to tell the salarians that you are working to save an AI not a ship."

She saw the human glance back in her direction quickly. "I think you know how they might react," He said aloud. Tali realized he might not have had the most advanced communications suite in his armor. Luckily the salarians with the group were also searching for the elusive Huragok, both inside the computer room and outside in the surrounding hallways

"Don't you think it would be better to tell them than surprise them?" Tali kept her external speakers off to keep the conversation.

"No, not really, if it…" Shepard's voice trailed off as he looked over Tali's shoulder.

Alarmed Tali spun around quickly. Finding herself face to face with what looked like a floating sack of flesh. Surprised she jumped backwards and brought out her shotgun. What had to be the Huragok let out a squeal of alarm and floated over behind a flickering holo-pedestal.

Hearing the commotion the rest of the group quickly rushed into the room, weapons out and pointed. The sangheili, seeing what had caused the trouble quickly holstered their weapons, while the salarians had their weapons out and pointed towards the holographic projector and the engineer cowering behind it.

"The Huragok is harmless, lower your weapons." Odeg's voice had the desired effect. The salarians dropped their weapons to a more relaxed pose.

"Harmless? Damn thing nearly killed me before I convinced it I was in the system." The holographic projector flickered to life, revealing the human AI's avatar. It was dressed in what appeared to be robes and sandals, and carried an ancient bow. The avatar had been programmed with very life like expressions, and was now showing anger. Tali noted the salarians had their weapons up again, this time pointed at Shepard, Liara, herself and the elites. She found herself worried about the humans, unlike the rest of the people in the room, they had no shields. The AI spoke again after the salarians readied their weapons, "First of all, Bob? Would you go ahead and put up that fancy overshield?"

Tali nearly dropped her shotgun in surprise as an odd sensation covered her body. A glowing shield now covered everyone in the room but the salarians. Oddly enough the shield stopped at her hands and the soles of her feet. Possibly limitations on what the engineer could do. She found herself wondering why the AI had told the engineer to give her a shield.

The AI's expression changed from anger to a smirk, "Now, captain Kirrahe, I suggest you put away your weapons so we can have a nice reasonable discussion."

Kirrahe was the first to drop his aim, the other salarians followed suit shortly after. The salarian looked towards Shepard, "AI technology is incredibly dangerous."

Shepard let out a short laugh, "Please captain, I trust Artemis here a hell of a lot more than I trust even Rodriguez here." Shepard gestured to the human they had picked up on the planet, "No offense, but I haven't known you very long colonel."

"None taken," The human soldier replied with a chuckle. "Besides I understand completely I've had my ass saved by an AI on more than one occasion."

Tali suddenly realized that Artemis had said the Huragok had stopped as soon as it realized she was in the system. "Wait a minute! You lied! You knew the engineer was here the whole time!" She jabbed an accusatory finger at Shepard, "You and your damn AI had this all planned out!"

Shepard put his hands up in mock surrender, "Whoa there, I only found out just as we found that brute stalker. This wasn't a conspiracy or anything, I'm sorry I lied to you, but it was necessary." The human lowered his hands and turned back to Kirrahe, "Captain I can understand you are upset, but I have to worry about the safety of my crew, and right now that includes Artemis in the mix. We need to contact your council, and see if we can get any sort of aid."

Tali shook her head, "As if they would actually help you."

Kirrahe glanced at her before speaking, "The fate of a species is in the balance here, a few breaches of citadel law without knowledge of said laws is hardly reason for the council to refuse help."

"Like they helped us against the Geth?" Tali practically shouted back. She turned towards Shepard, "I never did finish my story about what happened to my people, after we were forced from our homeworld by the Geth, the council refused to help us. They closed our embassy on the citadel and actively prevented us from attempting to settle on several worlds that would have met our needs." Tali realized she had just lost control of her temper and blushed behind her visor. "Sorry commander, I just got a little angry."

Shepard held up a hand, "Understandable, just try and save it for when we aren't in a tense negotiation," He gestured for Kirrahe to be quiet before he could retort, "Artemis, you got that codex from Dr. T'soni's omnitool, what does it say about this?"

"It is unsurprisingly vague on the point commander, but considering other histories that are in the codex, I would say that it is probably true… You want me to go ahead and take control of their ship and overload the core?" The AI replied with a smile.

Shepard turned his head to regard the AI, "Don't joke about that Artemis."

"Who's joking? That story made me angry." Artemis had the same smile plastered on her face as she stared at the salarian captain.

"Commander, I would appreciate it if threats to my life and those of my crew were not commonplace." Kirrahe sounded irate, of course Tali would probably be too if someone threatened her and her crew with death.

"I'm sorry for that captain," Shepard apologized while gesturing for Artemis to keep quiet. "Will you be able to contact the council? Death threats levied against your crew or not, there is still the matter of the superweapon to deal with."

"Yes, but I will feel better if we could continue this aboard what remains of my ship. After we make sure your AI can't get into our systems." The salarian responded with a bit of venom in his voice.

"Yes, please go ahead, Artemis direct them there, peacefully." Shepard put an emphasis on the word peacefully, obviously trying to get Artemis to comply.

Tali watched the salarians leave before re-holstering her shotgun, and sat down. Her earlier happiness at finding the salarians and therefore a way home had long since disappeared. She sighed and leaned her head back. As if they sensed that she needed a moment alone, the humans, elites, and Liara left the room.

"Keelah, what have I gotten myself into?" She asked herself out loud.

"A shit storm would be the term most humans would use." The damn AI was back to bother her again.

Tali didn't bother with a reply and tried to ignore the annoying computer program.

Artemis didn't take the hint and continued on, "I don't get it. Why are you so hostile? I've probably saved your life on more than one occasion. Crushing a brute in a door, guiding you to friendlies, directing the salarians to pick you up from Reach. Why do you still hate me?"

The computer's words caused her to whip around in her chair, "Do you really think that makes up for the billions your kind slaughtered, for the children of my species forced to grow up without a homeworld in environmental suits, sealed away from physical contact of any kind?"

The AI yelled back with an equal anger in her voice, catching Tali off guard, "I didn't do that! Your Geth did that! You can't blame the whole species for the actions of a group. Are all batarians slavers? Are all asari sex crazed strippers? Are all quarians thieves? Are they?"

Tali got up angrily and stormed off to her temporary quarters, not even bothering to respond to the damned AI.

ooooooo

General Septimus looked at the council specter incredulously, "Safe passage for refugee transportation? Who is to say that my opposite number here won't sneak in heavily armed commandos in place of civilians?"

Nihlus had obviously expected the question, and was quick to answer, "I had our resident prisoner contact his general. They agreed to letting us handle security completely, we would have complete discretion in who is allowed aboard and who isn't"

Septimus stared at the specter for a moment before replying, "What do you think the council would say if we show up with a few thousand refugees from an alien race who is in the middle of a war with a race that could probably kill the entire citadel defense fleet with a dozen ships?"

"I don't know general, but it is the only way you will get your troops off planet, and you know it." Nihlus shrugged, "Besides it was under direct orders from a council specter, that should be good enough to keep you out of the worst of the politics."

"I always thought you specters were a bad idea, I guess you do come in handy here and there, even if this isn't a citadel sponsored mission" Septimus sighed, "fine I'll agree. You can go tell your human friend."

After the specter had left the bridge he turned to the helmsman, "ETA?"

"Half an hour sir," The crewman replied without looking away from his controls.

Septimus sat down in his chair, it was going to be a long fifty minutes.

ooooooo

_Well, there it is, the next stage of the story is just around the corner._


	12. Chapter 12

ooooooo

_Anyone else wonder if the council would believe the cell phone popcorn trick? An audio file is all it takes to convince them of abandoning their best operative. Imagine what they would think if they ever found humanity's old youtube videos.  
_

ooooooo

Previous Chapter Summary: Shepard & co. make it to the Dawn Under Heaven with the help of the salarians, however the salarian ship crashes in the hangar, they find brutes already on board the ship. The group rushes to save the AI Artemis from a covenant engineer. After doing so the salarians, alarmed at the discovery of an AI, pull back to secure their ship against software intrusion. The turian forces were just about to arrive at the Shanxi garrison to load refugees in exchange for a pass off planet.

ooooooo

Lieutenant Richard Hall stepped out of the turian troopship to a welcome sight. Around the hastily cleared landing zone a large group of marines and army soldiers sat waiting, weapons holstered. Anti-air weapons stood ready, including ground launch archer missiles. Various weapon emplacements had been set up in a ring facing outwards. A handful of officers stood at the front, a delegation to meet the turians probably, and actually handle the details of a civilian evacuation. Hall was surprised to see General Williams standing out in front.

Behind Hall several turians came down the ramp, General Septimus, his advisors, and Nihlus. Several turian soldiers were also exiting their ships, eyeing their human counterparts warily, and receiving the same looks in return. He made sure to walk ahead of the turian delegation, to show that he wasn't with them. As he approached the general he snapped a salute.

The general returned the salute, "I don't know whether to congratulate you lieutenant, or shoot you for treason. Either way if this works I think you might deserve a medal."

Hall nodded and assumed an at ease position between the two groups, "Thank you sir,"

The general turned to face the turians, his face unreadable, "Good to finally meet you gentlemen, wish it were in better circumstances. Our longswords can keep the enemy corvettes at bay for some time, but eventually that cruiser or that carrier will get wise. We need to evacuate our civilians as quickly as possible."

The turian general nodded, "Hopefully we have enough levo food for them to make it to the citadel. Our transports weren't designed as refugee ships."

Hall stepped in to explain, "The citadel is a huge space station in their territory, there's apparently a large conglomeration of different species there, where they should have the materials to deal with refugees." He purposely left out the part where it was entirely possible for them to refuse to help. These turians were stuck with them if they wanted to leave the system, but once back in their space other governments might not accept a group of refugees.

Williams nodded, "Wish I could send 'em to human territory, but to be honest I don't know if there is human territory any more. Well general, do you have space made for them?"

Septimus nodded in confirmation, "Empty barracks, cargo bays, firing ranges. It'll be tight, but we should be taking as many as possible with us. If only it was enough." Septimus sighed, "Which brings me to this; two of my regiments that were badly mauled by the covenant have volunteered to stay and assist your forces. They want a little revenge for their fallen comrades."

General Williams' featureless expression changed quickly at that news to a bitter smile, "If they stay they'll get that chance."

As the two generals kept hammering out the details of evacuation, Hall and Nihlus stepped to the side.

"How likely do you think it is that the council will actually do something to help us out?" Hall asked the specter.

"Unless something changes, they'll probably hide these refugees away on some remote colony, blockade the relay and stick their heads in the sand." Nihlus replied.

"Better than nothing I guess." Hall shook his head, "What's your plan though? You're above the law right? You're only one man, but I'm betting if the politicians stick their heads in the sand, you'd still be able to get a few of the military types to listen."

"What was that expression you used? Play it by ear?" Nihlus continued after Hall nodded, "I know a few members of the turian and salarian militaries who wouldn't be inclined to sit back and hope this covenant passes us by. Other than that I'm at a loss as to what we can do." The turian turned to look at him, "What about you? A human who actually knows what we're facing would help to convince them."

Hall shook his head, "No, you'll have to find someone else. I grew up on this planet, and I sure as hell ain't gonna leave her to be glassed." Hall knew he didn't have a chance at actually making a difference against the covenant, but it still felt wrong to leave his homeworld behind. The turian nodded in response.

"Stalkers!" A yell sounded from one of the soldiers stationed around the impromptu landing field. The yell was quickly followed by a mix of assault rifle and spiker fire.

Hall crouched down and cursed the fact that the turians had disarmed him. He was surprised to see Nihlus handing him a pistol almost immediately. The turian had his shotgun out and ready in his other hand.

Taking the pistol Hall immediately brought it up and began looking for any sort of flicker that would reveal a stealthed brute. Heat distortion around the turian ships made that harder than normal. Spotting something, he fired the pistol.

His target's active camo failed, revealing a spec ops grunt. The diminutive alien pitched backwards as the round went through its skull and penetrated the methane tank on its back.

The highly flammable methane caught and sprayed out from the dead grunt's armor. The spray disrupted its squadmates active camouflage, revealing a half dozen more spec ops grunts and a brute stalker.

Hall backed up while firing, trying to get away and find cover. Luckily the marines and turians standing around saw the threat and poured fire into the group of covenant special forces. The covenant soldiers quickly went down under the combined fire.

Sporadic bursts of fire sounded from elsewhere in the makeshift landing field. Hall kept his weapon up as he checked on the officers. Marines and turians had formed a ring around the two generals; all focused outwards looking for more covenant targets.

"We need to evacuate now, the covenant won't bother with sending corvettes now, one of their heavy capital ships will move in soon." Hall overheard General Williams explain to the turian. "James, get that spook up here."

Hall turned to the general, assuming he was the spook in question. To his surprise a marine ran up with another person. The newcomer wore marine body armor over what appeared to be a business suit.

Curious, Hall followed Nihlus to the generals' position. The newcomer was older and looked more like a business man than a soldier, Hall guessed he was either section two or three by his rigid military posture. Despite having graying hair the man carried himself like a rookie, not a hard bitten veteran, which implied that he worked behind the front lines.

"Alright Donnel, you get to play temporary ambassador, it's your job to keep the civvies safe wherever they're headed." The general stopped the other's response with a raised hand, "No complaints or stupid bravery, I need someone with a level head going with the civilians. Someone who is military but knows how to play political games. You fit the bill; you get to go off planet. Consider it an order."

"Yes sir," The ONI officer replied somewhat dejectedly. Hall realized he was probably a Shanxi native.

The general turned to Hall, "Lieutenant."

Hall replied quickly, "Sir!"

"I assume you're going to ride out with your turian buddies?"

"No sir," Hall replied, feeling insulted, "I grew up on this world, I'm not going to leave her behind to get glassed."

"Good, then you're liaison with the units General Septimus here is leaving with us." Williams replied with a bitter smile before turning to one of his aides, "Get the civilians up here, we don't have a lot of time left."

ooooooo

Tali sat in her bunk, away from Artemis' prying cameras, and whatever else she used for eyes. She opened up her omnitool and quickly closed it again and punched a wall. She was still pissed off at the AI. She took a deep breath to try and calm down. Being angry wasn't productive, but Artemis' comments had made it damn hard not to stay angry.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a crash outside followed by loud swearing. Tali opened her door and looked out in the hallways. The human they had picked up from the planet, Rodriguez, stood outside standing by an overturned cart and wearing a simple mechanic's vacuum suit. What looked like a set of maneuvering jets and a pane of armored plastic, along with various other odds and ends sat spilled across the floor.

She decided to interrupt the man's continued swearing, "Do you need any help?"

The human whipped around faster than she could blink, his sidearm half drawn out of its holster. He recognized her and stopped, "Oh, it's you alien girl, what was your name again?"

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, you can call me Tali though," She replied as she walked over to the upturned cart and began loading it back up. The thruster assemblies were heavy, but with the human's help they were soon back on and loaded. "So what are you doing?"

"I'm checking the pelican's in the bays for damage and trying to fix the ones I can," The human explained, "Just to find something to do, you know? Those ONI types are talking to those frog aliens' council. Nothing else to do."

Tali studied the human while she thought about her reply. Rodriguez looked decidedly older than either Joker or Shepard, there was some gray in his hair and his skin had more wrinkles. There were also a few ugly looking scars on his head. Rodriguez seemed to be a very different person than those two, reminding her more of the grizzled marine veterans on the migrant fleet.

"Do you mind if I join you? I could get my hands dirty, sounds like just what I need," She didn't have much more than an omnitool, but figured the human would know where any heavier tools would be.

"You sure about that young lady?" The human shrugged, "I mean they made pelicans pretty idiot proof, but they still ain't that easy to fix."

Tali crossed her arms and leaned back, "Please, I've been fixing ships since I got out of my bubble, those dropships can't be too hard to fix up."

"Good attitude I guess, but that's if we can find enough ships that are actually fixable." The human turned his attention back to the cart, "Whatever, get your stuff if you want to help, an extra pair of hands couldn't hurt." The human looked back in her direction, "Even if they are missing a few fingers."

Tali narrowed her eyes at the comment, but the human seemed to not notice, she decided to ignore it for now and followed the human down the corridor.

ooooooo

Shepard righted the last overturned chair in the briefing room. Unlike most areas of the ship, this room had been intended not to be used during combat. None of the chairs had been bolted to the ground, and during the battle of reach they had been strewn around at random. However the room suited the purposes of a meeting quite well, which is why Shepard and Joker were busy getting the place to look somewhat cleaner before they sat down to contact the council. It had taken the salarians some time to isolate their communications system from the rest of their ship. Fortunately they didn't seem nearly as perturbed by Artemis as Tali had. The salarians had agreed to work with Shepard shortly after they secured their ship from software intrusion.

Shepard stood up and stretched. He noticed Joker already sitting down at the table, "What is this? a union job?"

"I don't have to answer that question, I'm on break." Joker responded as he leaned back and closed his eyes.

Shepard's response was interrupted as the doors opened, admitting a pair of elites, Odeg, and the ultra whose name Shepard had never learned. They stood nearby in an awkward silence, interrupted only when Liara arrived a minute later.

"So, what is your name then?" Shepard addressed the ultra, hoping to break the tension.

"Quel'Foram," The elite spit out, obviously still a little hostile.

"John Shepard, most people call me Shepard," He held out his hand, but dropped it when the elite didn't take it. Shepard shrugged and turned to Odeg, "What's eating him?"

Odeg glanced at the other elite before speaking, "I fought beside his father on halo, where he was killed by Tartarus."

Shepard shrugged in indifference, unable to feel sympathy for an elite, and sat down in one of the chairs. Now they just had to wait until the salarians established contact with their superiors.

"I've been thinking…" Joker swiveled in his chair towards Shepard.

"There's a surprise." Shepard replied.

"No, seriously," Joker leaned forward, "Doesn't giving the council Earth's location violate the cole protocol? I mean, sure maybe this citadel fleet will kick the covenant's ass, and there's a happy ending for everyone. Then no one cares if the cole protocol was broken. But, unknown group of alien races, with an unknown motivation…"

"Yeah it does," Shepard glanced at the three aliens in the room, who were paying close attention. He ignored them, "Which is why I've been trying to think of a way to contact HIGHCOM without leading anything straight to earth, no luck so far, might as well see if this 'council' is even willing to get involved in someone else's war. With a…" He glanced at the elites, "superweapon hanging over their heads, they might be easier to convince. Then… well they can line me up against a wall and shoot me for all I care if the human race ends up saved because of it."

"Do you really think we'll need this council? I mean, the elites are apparently on our side." Joker gestured to Odeg and the ultra.

Shepard shook his head and looked back over at the zealot, "No disrespect Odeg, but you saw what they sent, three elites. I'm sure they were damn good warriors and all, but there's not much they'll be able to do against the covie fleet at earth. Bastards were still slipping in beneath the defense grid when we left. Three elites won't be able to do anything."

"You would be surprised human, your demon managed to completely destroy one halo already, and murdered two prophets despite the existence of our fleets," Odeg cocked his head to the side, "The Arbiter is said to be his equal."

Liara spoke up with a question, "What about this superweapon? Can it not be used to fight back against the covenant?"

Odeg's reply was cut off as the door opened again and admitted the salarian captain and Nassana. They both quickly sat down at the table.

Kirrahe opened up the discussion, "Yes, now that we are safely aboard your vessel, and the boarders have been eliminated I would like to know what exactly this prothean super weapon is."

"And, whether or not it would be a good idea for the council to get involved in this war." Added Nassana, "So, let's see this evidence, and then we'll pass it along to the council in our reports."

Shepard nodded and gestured for Odeg to step forward. After all the elite was the one who actually knew anything about halo.

The gold armored elite moved up to the table somewhat awkwardly and proceeded to speak, "Ever since the war with the prophets and the resulting formation of the covenant, we had searched for the sacred rings. This is taught to us from our very first breath." Odeg paused as if gathering his thoughts, "They were supposedly objects used by the forerunners to ascend to god hood. We were to follow in their footsteps, the so called great journey," The elite shook his head, "All lies."

Shepard noted that Odeg was flexing his hand into and out of the shape of a fist. He hadn't quite realized how pissed off the elites would be at the prophets.

"When we encountered the humans, they were declared an affront to the gods by the prophets." Odeg glanced back towards the ultra, Quel'Foram, "The ninth age of reclamation has been spent fighting the humans, and attempting to wipe them out. We… the covenant, nearly succeeded. We defeated their massed fleets here at Reach. One ship escaped; following them we found the first halo. It was destroyed when a human overloaded their ship's reactors, causing the ring to break into pieces."

The asari diplomat interrupted at that point, "But what does the halo do? For that matter, if it was destroyed why does it matter?"

"There are still six halos in existence." The elite replied somewhat angrily. He seemed to resent being interrupted. "They are weapons of mass destruction, meant to wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy."

"You really expect me to believe that? I thought you had a genuine prothean superweapon for a minute there, not a ridiculous fabrication." Nassana let out a humorless laugh.

Shepard turned and looked at the asari diplomat with a raised eyebrow, and was surprised when the salarian captain very nearly mimicked his expression.

"Please continue, how do these halos perform their function? How could they target only sentient life?" Kirrahe apparently didn't share Nassana's skeptical views.

"I do not know how the forerunners built their devices; I only know the words of the oracle. A construct made to oversee halo. The prophets had said they had been made for other purposes, but their lies are many."

"Just to clarify, construct is the covenant term for an AI. A forerunner artificial intelligence." Artemis' avatar materialized on the tabletop. She was facing the aliens at the opposite end of the table, most likely with a self satisfied smile on her face.

"Alright, Artemis, don't try and lord the fact that the forerunners used AIs over them, just move on." Shepard decided to cut off the AI before she could go on a rant.

The AI turned back to look at him and rolled her eyes, "You're no fun." Instead of turning back around, her avatar disappeared into the tabletop and was replaced by a box, showing the same two dimensional scene on all four sides.

After a few seconds Shepard recognized it as the covenant equivalent of a heads up display. In one corner a motion detector readout sat with what may have been a shield bar. In the upper left four small spheres sat. He didn't know what those indicated, but in the upper right were obviously weapon readouts. He saw that Odeg was using his current load out in the footage, a plasma pistol and a sword; each had a few unrecognizable covenant runes next to them, probably ammo counts.

Wherever Odeg had been, it was obviously dark. Shepard couldn't see anything but the elite's HUD. That darkness gave way when a massive bay door swung upwards. He realized that Odeg must have been riding in a Spirit class dropship.

The occupants of the dropship jumped clear. As the elite landed he took a look around.

"Damn…" Joker muttered under his breath.

Shepard was inclined to agree with the pilot. No less than two other golden armored zealots had jumped off the dropship, along with four elites equipped with a ridiculous looking red and gold armor, and one elite with an overly large headpiece. Shepard stifled a laugh at that elite. The huge helmet was obviously ceremonial, not to mention unwieldy, and would make the alien a major target for any snipers.

Each of the eight elites ignited their swords and stalked forward. Ahead was a blasted stone hallway. Some parts of it still glowed; large stone blocks littered the hallway. Standing near the entrance was a single human soldier, beam rifle slung on his back.

The human leaned over to one of the glowing sections. When he stood back up and turned around, there was a lit stub of a cigar in his mouth, "Took you ladies long enough. C'mon, the arbiter is already inside, let's go help him make some rain on the brute's parade."

Shepard smiled at the random human marine; the man had some guts facing down eight elites like that, even if they were allies.

What he saw next made his jaw drop in amazement. As the elites began moving into the blasted stone building, Odeg's point of view pivoted to look back out away from the building. The world itself curved upwards. Lakes, clouds, mountains, could all be seen curving up along what appeared to be a huge ring world.

"There's no way that's real…" Joker said in amazement.

"That is halo. Entire worlds built by the forerunners, in order to house the weapons needed to stop the flood." Odeg said as the recording paused.

"If true, this halo far surpasses citadel in engineering. Possibly weaker structurally, but amazing engineering marvel." Kirrahe was looking at the paused recording with interest. "Unfortunately hard to verify. However, deployment of weapon maybe explanation for prothean extinction."

"You can't tell me you actually believe this garbage?" Nassana half stood up from her seat before the salarian put a restraining hand on her shoulder.

"If fabrication, well done, and not on the part of our hosts." Kirrahe gestured to the two elites who had their hands on their weapons, then towards Joker and Shepard. "Sangheili seem to be insulted by your outburst, enough to kill, humans just as skeptical as ourselves. Please, continue."

The two elites seemed to relax, though Shepard saw that the ultra was still glaring at the asari diplomat.

The recording started up again. As the group of elites made their way through the building they ran across a couple dozen brute corpses, all killed with a variety of weapons. Eventually the group made their way down a long curving hallway that seemed to be made of glass and some odd alloy, covered in geometric shapes and designs.

Shepard noted out of the corner of his eye that Liara seemed to be paying a lot more attention now that they were inside the building. He figured it might have had something to do with being an archaeologist.

As the group rounded the corner the sound of a distant conversation came through over the speakers. Eventually Shepard was able to make out a few words.

"…what is halo's purpose?" The voice sounded like that of an elite after running through a translator.

"Collectively, the..." The high pitched voice sounded like it came from a superintendent class AI. It was a bit computerized sounding, and couldn't really be mistaken for an organic talking.

The voice was soon cut off by the deep growl of a brute, "Not another word!"

Finally the scene came into view. Shepard realized the audio pickup must have been enhanced. Either by Artemis, or by the computer in Odeg's armor. There should have been no way to hear the conversation as far away as the group was.

Five brutes stood around a control panel in front of a cavernous room. What looked like a navy officer was held prisoner in the middle of the group. The large white furred brute held a large glowing metal sphere in its hands. A lone elite in gray steel colored armor stood facing them. A human made shotgun was held awkwardly in its hands, a covenant carbine slung across his back. Odeg and the other elites walked forward slowly, swords gripped in ready positions.

The unknown human marine stepped forward and raised his beam rifle, "Please… don't shake the light bulb." When the brutes made a grab for their weapons the marine spoke again, "You want to keep your brains inside your head, I'd tell those boys to chill."

The brutes didn't seem to take heed of the marine's words until the large white one let out a short bark. The others stopped what they were doing almost immediately. Shepard figured the big one was probably a high up chieftain.

When the brutes backed off the human looked to the oddly armored elite, "Go ahead, do your thing."

The elite nodded and turned back to the group of brutes, "The sacred rings, what are they?"

The small sphere appeared to be the source of the AI voice, the lights flashed in sync with its words, which appeared to be in English, "Weapons of last resort built by the forerunners to eliminate potential flood hosts; thereby rendering the parasite harmless."

"And those who made the rings? What happened to the forerunners?" The elite asked.

"After exhausting every other strategic option, my creators activated the rings. They and all additional sentient life in three radii of the galactic center, died, as planned. Would you like to see the relevant data?" Shepard figured the AI was probably of the 'dumb' variety, it appeared far too cheerful to be discussing its maker's demise.

"Tartarus, the prophets have betrayed us." The elite kept its weapons at its side. As seen through Odeg's helmet camera the rest of the elites showed no restraint, many of them already moving forward slowly, including the one with the fancy helmet.

In a not quite unexpected move, the brute hurled the AI at the marine, bowling him over and sending his beam rifle flying. "No Arbiter," The brute grabbed the human officer's hands and appeared to shove them into the console, "The great journey has begun, and the brutes, not the elites shall be the prophets' escort."

It was like a switch had been flipped, in one moment both sides had been eyeing each other warily, the next they charged at each other yelling out war cries. The initial fight was over in moments. The white brute stood next to the console, which began moving backwards and down to a lower platform. The others really weren't a match for nine elites to suddenly rush them, and ended up skewered on energy swords, or in one unfortunate brute's case, half his head blown off by a shotgun.

The chieftain however went down a lot less easily. He had moved into a makeshift arena with some sort of powerful energy shield surrounding him. In the center a column of white light rose from the depths of the room, and continued up through the roof of the building. Machinery and platforms rotated and moved around the area in seemingly random patterns.

The elites all jumped into the middle, Odeg and the grey armored elite brought up the rear. That probably saved their lives. The brute swung his gravity hammer and the white armored elite was smashed into a pulp. He swung the hammer again and two of the red and gold ones went flying. They landed in twisted heaps elsewhere on the platform.

The fight went on and one by one the elites died from the brute's gravity hammer, until only Odeg and the gray armored elite were left.

Three shots from a beam rifle struck the brute in the head. The thing's shields went down. Almost instantly the three elites acted. The chieftain found itself cut into pieces by their swords before it could swing its hammer again.

Almost before the pieces hit the ground, Shepard saw the human officer run up to the center console and yank a piece of metal out of the holographic interface. Immediately the room started to shake wildly, the camera view began to wobble as Odeg attempted to keep his balance.

The center column of light flashed once, then disappeared. As soon as that happened the shaking stopped. Several tense moments passed by before the officer asked, "So, did we do it?" None of the elites had an answer for her question. A holographic display appeared above the console as the forerunner AI floated down to ground level with the marine holding on for a ride. "What's that?"

"A beacon," The forerunner AI gave a less than helpful answer.

"What's it doing?" The officer asked.

"Communicating at superluminal speeds with a frequency of..."

"Communicating with what?" the officer cut off the AI before it could continue with the technical details.

The monitor pivoted in air to look at the officer, "The other installations."

"Show me."

"Failsafe protocol; in the event of unexpected shutdown, the entire system will move to standby status. All remaining platforms are now ready for remote activation." The AI helpfully supplied.

The human officer looked at the display for a moment before turning back to the AI, "Remote activation, from here?"

"Don't be ridiculous." The AI said with a hint of condescension.

The marine, obviously fed up with the AI, turned to it and said, "Listen tinkerbell, don't make me…"

The officer rested a hand on the marine's shoulder, interrupting him, "Then where? Where would someone go to activate the other rings?"

The AI hesitated for a moment before answering, "Why, the ark, of course."

The camera angle shifted and Odeg turned to look at the gray armored elite walking up, "And where oracle, is that?"

The AI turned around to the holographic display. As it did so, the view shifted to a map of the galaxy. "Closest available access to the ark is in this system." A light lit up on one of the spiral arms. Coordinates were displayed below. Shepard recognized them immediately as the coordinates of sol in relation to the gravitic center of the galaxy.

"Damn, so that's what the covenant were doing on Earth." Shepard muttered under his breath.

The display collapsed back down, revealing Artemis' avatar again. "There is more, but I feel that summed it up pretty well, nice dramatic flair, a little bit of action. Some understated romance… A gun pointed at the head of the universe."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at the AI, not finding her attempt at humor funny, "I'm guessing that's how they found Earth then?"

Artemis nodded, "Most likely. Apparently there was another halo, emphasis on the word, was. It's possible the prophet of regret found Earth somewhere in that installation's files."

Shepard let out an ironic laugh, "Just our luck then, to evolve on top of some master control switch for a galaxy wide doomsday weapon."

"What was this parasite the prothean AI mentioned?" Kirrahe leaned forward in his chair, "It must have been an extreme danger if the protheans killed themselves in order to stop it."

"I have some footage of that too… it's very disturbing." Artemis' avatar disappeared again to be replaced by footage from Odeg's camera.

Shepard's attention was piqued by the AI's unusually serious tone, he settled back again to watch.

Odeg had apparently been standing in a natural valley. In the distance the curvature of Halo could still be seen. A ragged group of elites stood in a makeshift defensive camp. Every elite had signs of battle damage on their armor. One in particular seemed to have a faulty shield generator; random sparks appeared across his armor.

A terrified grunt manned a portable plasma cannon. It was shaking as it swung the weapon back and forth. Suddenly it opened fire at some target in the distance, screaming hysterically as it did so.

The camera rotated to look at the grunt's targets. Several odd looking aliens were sprinting towards the covenant position. A mix of plasma fire and what looked like UNSC small arms raked across the covenant position. Shepard wondered what kind of aliens those where, and why the hell they had the grunt so terrified.

"The parasite comes at us again my brothers! Hold fast!" A voice rang out over the din of combat; Shepard realized it was probably Odeg's voice. One of the unknowns leapt at the covenant position. It must have covered a dozen meters in a single leap, impressive even for an elite. Shepard finally got a good look at the unknown, and gasped in a mixture of surprise and disgust.

The thing wore UNSC marine garb. It looked like it was a human at one point, but no longer. Its head lolled to one side, neck obviously broken or missing. Its left arm had been replaced by a collection of tentacles; the right had a SMG in its grip. Some sort of strange growth was centered in its chest.

The thing let out a roar before striking Odeg with its left arm, sending the elite flying backwards into a boulder. Fire from the other elites managed to kill the thing. Odeg climbed to his feet and the camera angle bobbed as he nodded his thanks to another elite.

That was when the little things swarmed their position. They looked like little sickly green balloons propelled by stubby brown tentacles. The grunt died quickly, one of the things attached itself to the little alien and burrowed in, its tentacles slicing through the grunts head instantly.

One elite took what looked like a sniper round to its head, probably from another one of the larger things. One of the small squid-like creatures leapt onto the elite's dead body and started to burrow into its chest. The dead alien started to convulse, growths formed on any exposed skin, while others burst through gaps in its armor.

With growing horror Shepard watched as the thing stood up. It looked eerily similar to the earlier human-alien zombie thing, except it was an elite as a base.

Odeg cut through the thing with his sword before it could attack. The footage stopped again there. Shepard honestly didn't know what to think about what he had just seen. It looked like something dreamed up for a horror film. If he had seen that in any other situation, he would have laughed it off as a fake. He looked around the room to gauge the other's reactions.

All the color had drained out of Joker's face. Liara's eyes were wide open in shock. Nassana looked like she was waging a battle to keep her lunch down. Kirrahe's mouth was moving as if to form words, but no sound came out. The elites were the only ones that seemed unaffected by the recording.

"The parasite caused the forerunners to destroy themselves with the halo array." Odeg announced.

The salarian captain got over his shock the fastest, "Useful as shock troops, dangerous in close combat, but superior firepower should win out. Orbital bombardment also seems a viable tactic."

"When the parasite takes a host, the experiences and memories are made available to the hive mind. The flood are not an enemy to be underestimated. They can operate starships, advanced weapons, and can outsmart the best of tacticians. The forerunners with their great works of technology still could not defeat the parasite." Odeg shook his head, "The flood have been encountered on each sacred ring we have found, likely test subjects before the rings were fired."

Kirrahe stood up to leave, "If true, this is grave news, I'll file my report to the council, and have your AI forward as many video logs as she can to my ship. They will be useful in making a full report."

Shepard nodded in reply. As the salarian and asari filed out of the door he caught a few whispered words between the two. Judging by her earlier reactions Nassana and Kirrahe were discussing the validity of what they had just seen.

After they left Odeg looked at the AI's avatar. "You did not give them the whole truth," his tone was more questioning than accusatory.

The AI looked up at the towering alien, "They may have not even believed that halo and the flood exist. Do you really think they would have believed us if I had told them that?"

Shepard frowned in confusion, "Are you talking about that children of the gods stuff Odeg was talking about when I first met him?"

For the first time since the briefing started Liara spoke up again, "Goddess! I had forgotten about that. You said that forerunner technology was gene locked to the human race. That might explain it."

"Explain what exactly?" Shepard asked.

"Well, first of all, the fact that the brutes simply didn't activate the halo as soon as possible. They needed a human to do it for them. It might also explain the differences in architecture, and technology. I don't believe the protheans were forerunner. It is more likely they were different species." Liara sounded more excited and confidant as she went on. "Can you display a map showing human territory compared to Sangheili… excuse me, covenant territory."

Artemis' avatar was immediately replaced by a map of the galaxy. Human territory was shaded in a deep blue color, with a miniscule section colored gold to indicate planets still held. It took up a good portion of a spiral arm. Odeg, guessing that Artemis wouldn't have access to a star chart, stepped forward and drew out a rough shape nearby. The covenant territory was highlighted in red. Overall it was roughly twice the size of the area held by the UNSC pre-war.

"If my guess is correct," Liara stood up and gestured to the map, "This area is likely highly concentrated with forerunner relics. Possibly left behind so that their 'children' could inherit them. Most likely, they destroyed as much of their technology as possible during their war with that… thing. The ruins near your territory could be their remaining territory before they fired halo." The asari leaned back, "That unfortunately still leaves the mystery of what happened to the protheans, if they couldn't activate halo, how did they get wiped out?"

"I don't know if we'll find out anytime soon." Shepard shrugged, "But tell me if you find out. I'm going to catch a nap until Kirrahe hears back from their council."

ooooooo

_AN: I'm disappointed in myself. I normally dislike when authors use the old gun cam footage trick to explain things… but then again, that's normally because it generally comes off as short and pointless. Hopefully this isn't. I don't expect to do another rewrite of something we've already seen in either game, so that should be the last of that._

_Exams and projects for the next two weeks, hopefully procrastination causes me to write more… we'll see._

_In other news, Section 8 prejudice came out Wednesday. A really fun five hour campaign, a pretty good horde mode, and an amazing multiplayer experience, all for the low low price of fifteen dollars… and its only $13.49 for preorder on steam. Overall a great game that's different from the standards set by halo and call of duty. Even better they managed to wedge a decent storyline into this one. I highly recommend it._


	13. Chapter 13

_Finally got a new chapter up, enjoy_

ooooooo

Liara lay on her bed, inside an officer's abandoned quarters. Contemplating what she had gotten herself into. On the upside, there was the discovery of a species that might predate the protheans, and maybe even confirm her theories, if the forerunners could build something like halo, the citadel and mass relays must have been child's play to them.

Of course there were a lot of downsides too, the flood, a race was teetering on the edge of extinction, and then there was the fact that halo was a superweapon designed to wipe out galactic life. It was all a bit overwhelming.

Her morbid thoughts were interrupted by the intercom, "Liara, please come to the briefing room, Artemis will guide you here."

Liara stood up from her bed and put on her enviro-suit and strapped her pistol to her side. Not all the compartments onboard the damaged vessel were pressurized, whether due to damaged equipment or battle damage exposing them to space, it was prudent to carry an oxygen supply through the _Down Under_. Not to mention the possibility of a cloaked covenant stowaway evading the AI's vigilance.

The doctor walked out into the hall and noted the strip of lights along the floor glowing blue. Following them she quickly came to the meeting room, with only one short detour through a maintenance shaft around a malfunctioning door.

The door to the room opened to reveal Shepard dressed in a jumpsuit, and the diplomat sent with the STG team, a fellow asari named Nassana. The other asari was wearing what looked like commando leathers. She also had a pistol holstered at her side. Liara noted the human's rifle resting against the table nearby. It seemed they both had similar thoughts to her own.

"Oh, good you're here," Shepard greeted her by standing up as she entered the room, and retaking his seat as she sat down. "We just found out that the council wants to meet face to face, or face to hologram if you prefer. I figured you might be somewhat useful in telling me what to expect, being your average citizen and not a politician like Nassana here."

"I'm not sure what help I would be, I don't pay much attention to politics." Liara answered, a little uncomfortably.

"Close enough," Shepard responded offhandedly, "Besides you're the prothean expert. Considering the origins of halo, you might be more useful than you think."

Liara shrugged, "I will try."

"Right, well I might as well go over the councilors, luckily these councilors are pretty close to stereotypes. Believe me it helps in trying to get them to do anything. Word a suggestion just right and they can be like putty in your hands, I helped the asari ambassador do just that a few times in the past decade." Nassana smirked, "The asari councilor will probably be the hardest to convince to take any action. She's a hard line conservative. Long view; wait and see attitude, but convince the other two and she'll agree to almost anything. That's her one flaw, she likes consensus vs. conflict."

Liara frowned, she remembered vaguely that the current asari councilor had lobbied on a platform of economic change and progress, and said as much.

"Yeah, economics are one thing; political standpoints on major issues are another." Nassana moved on, "The salarian is a different story, pretty much the polar opposite, I hear he even brought up the possibility of trade embargos with the batarians over their continuing slave trade, and he keeps trying to allow greater leniency in synthetic research and genetic engineering. To convince him, you might need to hint at your technology and a possibility of trade, even if there is none."

"Easy enough," Shepard remarked, "Though I would think that Kirrahe and his team would have forwarded a more detailed report to him."

"I'm not sure why, but I'm surprised you've picked up on the race politics so easily." Nassana answered.

Liara frowned at that, she knew that some politics were drawn along race lines, but she had always thought when it came to important matters such as this, those would disappear.

"ONI does train its officers fairly well," Shepard smirked. "What about the last councilor? There are only three, right?"

"Yeah, he's a turian, militant. I think he used to serve in the bureaucratic side of their military, and eventually got high enough in rank to be considered for the councilor position." The asari diplomat smiled, "He will probably be the easiest to convince. After all it was a turian fleet that was lost over your world. A military threat would be met with overwhelming force. Standard turian doctrine, and the turians councilor is a by the books type of soldier."

Shepard turned to face Liara, "What do you think?"

Liara paused to think for a minute, "From what Nassana says, it seems like you will have a relatively easy time convincing them to intervene, especially since they know of halo." She noticed Nassana roll her eyes, but decided not to comment, "I suppose the only problem would be to convince them to act quickly, the council is notorious for acting slowly. They might try to assign a specter, but a fleet would be harder to get."

"Alright, thank you ladies for your help, I'll have to talk to Artemis about this. You can go back to your quarters." Shepard keyed a few controls on the table and brought up a hologram.

Liara took that as her cue to leave, pointedly avoiding the other asari's looks and retreating to her temporary quarters.

Up until now, she hadn't considered the council not helping to stop the threat posed by halo. That thought scared her. She sat down behind the small desk in her room and leaned back, hoping everything would work out.

ooooooo

Lieutenant Hall watched as the last turian ship lifted off from the makeshift landing field. Longsword fighters escorted the bulky transport ships out of the atmosphere and away from Shanxi.

He looked back down; General Williams was standing with the commander of the turian forces that had stayed behind. The alien had a purple stained bandage wrapping one hand and its armor was dented and scraped. He had probably been right in the thick of it when the covenant attacked their original landing site.

The general turned to Hall, "Lieutenant, I'm appointing you liaison with your alien buddies." Williams then turned to address the turian commander again, "We're in the process of bugging out of this location. One of those covenant ships is bearing down on us; probably going to glass this position."

"We're an armored company; the majority of our vehicles are still intact. Give us the orders and we'll head out." The turian commander responded.

"Good, I'll have the superintendent send you rendezvous coordinates immediately. I have to say, I was expecting you to try and avoid placing yourself under our command." The general replied while gesturing to an aide, likely to contact the planet's superintendent AI.

The alien commander shrugged, "We're turians commander, we follow orders, it's what we do."

The general let out a short laugh, "Good, for now, get as much distance from this site as possible, we'll be deploying nuclear ordnance against that ship, they're clean for nukes, but they pack a hell of a punch."

"Will we have time to clear the blast zone?" Hall asked the general.

"That ship is sticking in atmo for some reason, it's travelling under the speed of sound, as of this moment we have maybe two hours tops. So get the lead out commander." The general replied before turning and boarding a waiting falcon transport.

The anachronistic rotorcraft spun up and flew away. Hall waited for the turian to give him orders. He didn't have to wait long.

"You'll load up with my cabal group; they're a direct report anyway. It will be the IFV with blue markings near the center of the column; any trooper can direct you there." The turian handed him a small object, obviously a hand radio despite its alien three fingered design. "I'll trust you to keep your general updated. Contact me with any further orders."

Hall nodded and made his way past the rapidly forming column of APCs, tanks, and transport trucks. Eventually he came upon a vehicle with eight large wheels on independent suspension, and a small turret above. There was a hatch in the side of the vehicle between the middle wheels.

Hall strode up to the hatch and knocked three times, then backed up. The hatch swung open to reveal a cramped interior, nine turians lined the inside of the vehicle.

The leader, denoted by a short red stripe on the color of his armor, gestured for the ONI officer to climb in, "The commander said to expect you, Lieutenant Hall I presume?"

"Yeah, that's me," Hall replied as he took the alien's proffered hand and was pulled up into the APC.

"So what did you do to get stuck with this job? Not polish enough gizzard in the command tent?" One of the troopers called out.

Hall didn't quite know what that phrase meant, but he could guess, "Hah1" He gave a short laugh at the joke, "No, I was aboard the _To Kill a Mockingbird_. The ship you blasted out of the sky and started this whole mess."

"Oh, so you're the specter's pet human eh?" a second trooper asked, "Guess the fleet bit off more than they could fit in their mandibles this time. As usual though, it's up to the army to clean up the mess."

Hall felt the vehicle start moving, "Better you than me, I like sitting in orbit, sipping tea and pushing buttons, far better way to fight a war," Hall replied, remembering a pep talk he had heard an ODST give to his squad before a drop.

The turian soldiers chuckled at the joke. "Yeah, as fun as that is, I prefer throwing the enemy around with my mind," One of the turians replied.

Hall frowned in confusion at the remark. Until the turian started glowing blue, and levitated an assault rifle in front of him; then Hall jumped against his restraints and exclaimed, "What the hell!"

"What? You people don't have biotics?" one of the soldiers asked.

"I'm pretty sure there isn't a single telekinetic human that I know of," Hall replied, regaining his composure. "Seems pretty useful in combat… not to mention for scratching that itch you just can't reach."

"Enemy vessel is approaching the city; nuclear detonations imminent," The vehicle's driver interrupted their conversation.

Hall felt the vehicle slow to a stop, and the suspension lower the vehicle closer to the ground, "How far are we from the blast zone?"

"Column has made it fifty miles from the landing site, you're detonating nukes, not anti-matter explosives, we'll be fine." The squad leader replied.

Hall gripped his restraints anyway. Moments later the blast wave hit them. Hall felt the vehicle slide a few feet on the highway. The ground continued to rumble and vibrate as the blast continued through the ground.

"That blast must have been a dozen megatons." The leader turned to Hall, "That seems like some pretty serious ordnance to take down one ship."

"Well, one down, one to go," one of the troopers remarked.

Hall's radio crackled with static in his ear on the UNSC channel, "Lieutenant, get your alien friends turned around and back to the landing zone. Damn nukes didn't manage to kill the carrier. Knocked most of them out of the sky before they could hit. The ship's damaged though, it's barely keeping station. The crew will probably try to affect repairs."

Hall noted the stunned looks on the faces of the turians as he replied, "Roger that, what are our orders?"

"Assault the ground forces defending the landing zone, try to board and overload the reactor, get a nuke inside and set it off. Any or all of the above Lieutenant. We might actually stand a chance of saving the world this time, so get moving."

"Yes sir, general."

ooooooo

Shepard followed a salarian soldier down the corridors of the _Dawn Under Heaven_. The salarian captain had sent for him, Odeg and Liara. Apparently the council desired a face to face meeting via hologram. He felt a bit nervous. Being an unofficial ambassador to a group of alien heads of state probably had something to do with that.

Without any sort of uniform he wore his armor. He looked over his shoulder at the elite following him. Odeg followed close behind, his golden armor glinting in the shipboard lighting. Liara had already gone ahead to borrow suitable clothing from the other asari.

Eventually the two arrived at the salarian section of the ship.

After their ship had crashed into the bay, the salarians moved into nearby empty sections of the _Down Under_. Shepard had let them, after all he wouldn't want to try and stay on a ship that was already half broken apart and leaning against the armored wall of an unpressurized bay.

The salarian soldier eventually led them to a vehicle maintenance bay. The aliens had set up a lot of their technology in the re-purposed machine shop. All of it had wires snaking out. They obviously no longer trusted wireless connections with an AI resident aboard the ship. A bare half dozen salarians manned the various computer stations in the makeshift room. Kirrahe, Liara and Nassana stood near three holographic pedestals, each of which was projecting a different alien race, one asari, one salarian, and one he didn't recognize, probably the turian.

"Ah, commander, you have made it," Liara greeted him as he drew near.

Shepard nodded in response before turning his attention to what he assumed was the council. He assumed that the alien leaders would follow similar rules of decorum. That the higher ranking persons would speak first. So he simply stood at attention and waited for them to speak.

The asari was the first to speak, "You are Commander Shepard correct?" At a nod the alien continued, "I am councilor Tevos, to my right and left are councilors Velarn and Anotus respectively," The Asari gestured to the turian and the salarian as she spoke. "Who is your companion?"

Shepard gestured for Odeg to step forward, "This is Shipmaster Odeg'Delus, of the Sangheili. And Artemis," he gestured to a UNSC holopad as it flickered to life, "The ship's AI."

The salarian spoke next, "Questionable use of synthetic intelligence aside, the evidence you have brought to us is troubling. The existence of a superweapon made by the most advanced technology of the Protheans is disturbing."

Nassana made a noise of disbelief, but kept quiet. Shepard ignored her brief outburst.

"What is the risk of the weapon being fired as of now?" The turian asked.

Shepard gestured for Odeg to speak, knowing the elite would be more suited to answer than he would.

"The risk is great," the elite stated, "The Prophet of Truth will arrive at the human's homeworld soon, if he hasn't already. The forerunner dreadnaught he commands will easily lay waste to what is left of the human defenses. From there he will work to activate the rings."

"Why would he want to do such a thing?" The asari councilor spoke again, "You said the rings can kill all life in the galaxy. It does not seem logical to do such a thing."

"Our religion drives him. Or I should say our ex-religion. It was said that the forerunners used the halo array to ascend to godhood, and that we would follow in their footsteps." Shepard could hear anger creeping into Odeg's voice as he spoke, "The prophets have guided the covenant for thousands of years with this goal in mind."

Shepard decided to add on to what Odeg was saying, "We've tried to reason with the covenant many times before, ever since the start of the war twenty seven years ago. It has never worked. If you can provide a fleet there may still be a chance to save the galaxy."

The turian spoke next, "If our fleet is up to the task. One of our fleets was wiped out by a mere two ships."

"How many ships?" Shepard asked.

"Seven cruisers, one dreadnaught, and nearly two dozen frigates were lost against the enemy vessels." The salarian rattled off the facts without a trace of emotion.

"Citadel cruisers are roughly analogous to UNSC frigates in terms of size. Their main gun is severely underpowered compared to a typical UNSC MAC gun, but makes up for it in rate of fire. Dreadnaughts are similar in comparison to UNSC cruiser class vessels." Artemis smiled at the aliens before continuing, "You should really be careful what you put in your codex. There is a lot of militarily viable information there." She turned to Shepard, "I've also seen the sensor logs from Shanxi they have forwarded. I'd say they were up against an assault carrier and a CCS class battle cruiser. It's impressive that they managed to get away with as few casualties as they did."

"Assuming you decide to help my race out councilors, how many vessels could you spare?" Shepard asked.

The unknown spoke again, Shepard got the feeling that he was perhaps the best versed in military matters, "The ready fleet consists of four dreadnaughts, fifteen cruisers and three dozen frigates. The Turian Hierarchy has another two dreadnaughts, four cruisers, and sixteen frigates waiting near relay 314. If the asari would deign to allow the _Destiny Ascension_ to leave the citadel we may have an impressive fleet."

"Artemis?" He asked over his shoulder.

"Give me generalized performance characteristics and weapons load outs for those ships and I might be able to come up with a workable strategy. Don't need specifics. Give me the standard." The AI said as she brought a hand up to her chin.

"Hand over fleet specifications to an AI? A trap should be less obvious." The asari councilor responded with a sneer.

The AI simply laughed at the alien's remark, "Please, I think I would be less obvious than that. An evil AI like myself could come up with a thousand better methods than that, in fact-"

"Artemis, that's enough." Shepard cut the AI off before she could continue.

"Right, sorry commander," she responded before addressing the council again, "I was designed as a fleet combat AI, to coordinate hundreds of vessels, thousands of fighters and planetary defense installations at the same time. If you want an honest evaluation of your chances at fighting the covenant I'll need the information." The AI gave the council a self satisfied smirk, "Besides, the fate of the galaxy may be at stake here. Do you really want to throw away any advantage you can get?"

"The AI's statement makes sense," The salarian said, "Practical first hand experience would be necessary for detailed analysis. AI capable of processing large amounts of information very quickly. Only limited details required, easy enough to provide, very little risk in return."

"AI technology is illegal for a reason," the asari countered.

"Why? Your programmers are so bad at their jobs any AI you make tries to kill you?" Artemis taunted in turn.

"Enough," The turian said, "Bickering will get us no where. Even if you choose to not believe the existence of this halo," He glanced at the asari before continuing, "The fact remains that this covenant is a grave threat to the security of the galaxy."

The turian councilor looked at the other two. The salarian nodded immediately, the asari was somewhat hesitant, but agreed as well.

A beep came from the holographic consoles. A salarian operative pressed a few buttons to complete the transfer from the council's connection to Artemis' systems.

The AI's avatar closed its eyes as if in thought, "That will work." Artemis' expression changed to a massive grin, "That will work very nicely."

"Well?" Shepard questioned.

Artemis turned towards him, "I think we might just be in business. With those resources I'm fairly certain I could defeat a dozen or so covenant capital ships."

"How so?" Shepard asked, remembering that the council had lost a somewhat sizable fleet to two covenant warships.

"Experience, if these weapon specs are correct, and they," She nodded her head towards the holograms of the council, "stay at extreme engagement ranges and concentrate on targets, you'll stand a chance; maybe even stay at even odds against a half dozen ships."

"You said a dozen or more before." The salarian councilor pointed out.

"Yes," The AI responded as she looked in the council's direction, "_I_ could defeat a dozen covenant vessels with those resources. I am a fleet combat AI; it's what I was made for."

"That's enough Artemis," Shepard chided the AI, "Compile your findings and any tactics you have come up with, put them in a nice report and forward them to the salarians. They'll make sure it gets to where it needs to go."

Artemis' AI gave a sloppy salute before disappearing from her pedestal.

The three councilors looked to each other in turn, eventually the three of them nodded in agreement to some unknown question.

The asari spoke, "The fleet will be dispatched to guard relay 314 commander, and any refugees will be accorded safety in our space."

Shepard felt like he had just been gut punched, "Councilors, I beg you to reconsider, your species' fates are at stake here too."

"We cannot risk sending the majority of our fleet to investigate the halo weapon. If the flood or the covenant discovers the relay our space will be threatened while our fleet is on a fool's errand. Our ships do not possess the firepower to destroy a prothean construction," The asari explained.

"It is a matter of ability, considering the size of the debris field around the planet you are currently orbiting; we do not believe we will be doing anything other than sending our ships to their deaths, for no purpose." The salarian continued, "We are decided, our business is over."

The holograms winked out together.

Shepard punched the small console in front of him in frustration.

"I do not understand," Odeg said from behind him, "They accept the existence of halo and the flood, but they wish to wait and see?"

"Politics, often troublesome," Kirrahe replied, "Maybe deadly in this case."

Odeg scoffed, "Politics? They will either end up destroyed by halo's fire, or consumed by the parasite, how can they play the games of politics now?"

Shepard straightened up and turned to Odeg, "One aging halcyon cruiser might not be able to make much of a difference, but we can make some." He looked over his shoulder at the salarian captain, "You and your crew are welcome to take a few dropships and wait here for pickup, but we'll be heading to earth once our slipspace drive is repaired."

The salarian looked thoughtful for a few moments, before one of his soldiers caught his attention, "Hold on commander, we're receiving another transmission from the citadel."

Shepard stopped and turned around, "Go ahead and play it."

To his surprise, the image of the turian councilor appeared behind one of the pedestals, "Commander, I must apologize for my fellow councilors."

Shepard walked forward to his pedestal, "That's good to hear, but apologies are just words. My species is at stake here."

The turian nodded, "I might not trust your AI, and I don't know if I quite believe this claim of a prothean superweapon, evidence or not, but the covenant is a grave threat to the galaxy." He took a breath, "That's why I will be passing along orders to the turian fleet waiting at the relay, for them to join up with your vessel and accept orders from your ship's commander; the AI of course. Expect them within six hours' time; the orders will take some time to go through. There will be a lot fewer ships than if the full citadel fleet were to join you, but something is better than nothing."

"Thank you sir," Shepard straightened up and saluted. The alien may have been a member of a foreign power, but Shepard felt the turian deserved some gesture of respect.

"Thank me if you win commander, either way the political blowback on this side might cost me my position. Whatever you do, make sure some of those soldiers come back alive." The turian gave a stiff return salute before cutting the connection.

"Interesting, councilor willing to risk position for what he has deemed higher goals, unexpected from his psychological profile," Kirrahe commented after the hologram flickered and died.

"Artemis said one of your dreadnaughts is a rough counterpart to our cruisers. He's tripled our chances of doing something worthwhile," Shepard responded. He gestured for Odeg and the captain to follow him, "Let's see how soon the slipspace engine can be made ready."

ooooooo

Nihlus stood next to the entrance of the barracks where a large number of human refugees were being housed for the trip to citadel space. He was waiting to talk to the appointed 'diplomat' among the humans, one rear admiral Donnel Udina, also of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Several turian soldiers and some human volunteers were passing out the limited levo based rations the turians had aboard ship. Most ships in citadel space carried rations of the opposite chirality amino acid for situations similar to this. However, the planners for this ship's supply store had obviously not planned for this many levo based sentients to travel aboard ship. Luckily it was only a day's travel to the nearest allied world, a turian colony world. They wouldn't have much, but they would have enough food on hand to feed the refugees.

From there it was only a few days travel to any number of worlds; depending on how quickly the council reacted they could set down and offload within four days.

His thoughts were interrupted as the human admiral walked over.

"Specter," the human said as a greeting, "Any news?"

Nihlus nodded, "We'll be at the relay soon, and able to contact the diplomats on the citadel, I doubt the council will get personally involved in this; from there, refugee status and possible settlement on a lightly colonized world."

"And the covenant?" The human asked, "Are you going to just stick your heads in the sand and pretend they won't find your worlds eventually?"

"That's not up to me," Nihlus looked at the refugees piled amid the bunks, "Personally I'd assign STG teams, hunt down their homeworld and nuke them back to the stone age. As the old saying goes, 'a fleet without a world dies of an empty stomach.'"

"I've never heard that one before," Udina remarked.

"It's an old turian saying, back from the unification war," Nihlus explained, "that was nearly three thousand years ago, but it still has truth."

The human let out a short laugh, "Three thousand years in space and you still get kicked around by the covenant?"

Nihlus turned back to the human, "I suppose you have a better track record?"

"No." Udina replied simply.

Before Nihlus could press further a message came over the ship's speakers, "Specter we're approaching the relay. Elements of the fleet are waiting for us; you and the human are needed on the bridge."

Nihlus set off for the command center, the human admiral close behind him. When he arrived he saw General Septimus and the ship's captain conversing with someone over the communications system.

"…No admiral, the refugees are from Shanxi, I wasn't aware more human worlds had been found."

Nihlus walked up to a respectful distance and stood at attention.

"Orders Admiral?" the general asked his superior on the other side of the connection.

"Through the relay, the council has a place set aside for refugees. Good day General," the connection closed shortly after.

Septimus turned around, "Specter, I've just received some unexpected news, a salarian STG team has encountered a damaged human vessel, and made contact with its surviving crew."

"The _Lady Luck_, the ship you chased out system when you began your ill-conceived invasion?" Udina asked before the general could continue.

The turian equivalent of a frown passed over the general's features briefly, "No, this ship was the _Dawn Under Heaven_ I believe. Do you recognize the name?"

"No," the admiral-turned-diplomat answered simply.

"Apparently the vessel was damaged in a fight over one of their worlds; they had managed to affect repairs to their vessel." Septimus glanced over towards Udina before continuing, "The fleet said they were being sent to rendezvous with the _Dawn Under Heaven_, in order to aid in the defense of the human homeworld."

Nihlus glanced at Udina. The man's face had tightened into a grimace, eerily similar to an asari's expression.

"Are you sure?" Udina asked.

"That is what the admiral told me." Septimus replied.

The human sighed, "And only two thousand refugees on this vessel." He shook his head, "I suppose that makes getting to 'safety' somewhat more pressing than I originally thought. If Earth is under attack, the safety of some twelve billion of us is at stake. Unless your fleet can make a difference, you may be carrying the last members of the human race aboard your ship."

General Septimus nodded and turned to the commander of the vessel, "Go ahead, bring us through the relay and get in touch with whoever is in charge of refugees."

ooooooo

Tali sat on the backend of a Pelican dropship, attempting to attach a thruster assembly to the damaged dropship. The human, Rodriguez, was operating a crane from a control cab up above, while she waited on the pelican to attach the heavy pod. Her omnitool was exceptionally useful in that regard, omni-gel being able to be formed into just about any part she wanted. "A little more to the left," she announced over the radio.

The part moved the tiniest bit over, Tali had to admit, the human was an artist with heavy machinery. "There, perfect," She quickly made the hydraulic and fuel connections to the pod, followed by the control wires. Her omnitool beeped at her to inform her that she was out of omni-gel. Luckily this was the last one; she wouldn't have to go through the process of finding the right quality scrap and melting it down for more.

Tali walked towards the nose of the dropship and climbed down to the hangar floor. As she made her way back to the other end of the dropship she found Rodriguez staring up at her handiwork, "Not bad Tali, better than most mechanics I've worked with anyway." The human nodded to himself as he inspected her work, "Don't know if we'll even get to use these birds, but it feels good to do some work with your hands if you know what I mean?"

Tali nodded in response, "Reminds me of home, patching up the _Rayya_ to keep it running."

The human nodded and made as if to reply but was interrupted by the intercom.

"If you're done with your little side project, I could use Tali down in the slipspace generator room," The AI's voice sounded over the ship speakers, "I think the gas bags got the thing working, but I don't have enough cameras and sensors to tell for sure, and Shepard is just plain clueless when it comes to highly complicated dimension travelling devices."

Tali narrowed her eyes at the announcement, and then let out a frustrated sigh, "I'll be there," She replied simply, having been uncomfortably reminded how the AI could see and control most of what happened aboard the ship. Noticing that Rodriguez wasn't following she turned around, "Are you coming?"

"Uh uh," the human shook his head. "I don't like slipspace engines, call it superstition if you want, I'll clean up here."

Tali shrugged her shoulders and made her way out of the maintenance area and deeper into the ship towards the slipspace generator.

She eventually passed through the section of the ship where the sangheili had made their home. The sentry standing guard outside their barracks watched her as she passed by with undisguised suspicion. Shaking off the stare she continued onwards towards her destination. Inwardly she wondered about the sangheili, or elites as the three humans she knew called them.

The only elite she had interactions with, Odeg, seemed outwardly polite and honorable. Yet all she had to do was look out a viewport to see what their race was capable of. What had once been a verdant garden world was now a blistered ash filled wreck of a planet; an ecosystem dead, along with a billion people.

Tali wondered if her ancestors had felt what the humans did now as they fled the homeworld and the colonies. At least the sangheili seemed apologetic about their actions. She didn't know if anything could make the deaths of billions better, but it was a lot more than the Geth had ever done. The synthetics had simply hidden themselves away behind the veil and killed off anyone who attempted to contact them.

Eventually she arrived at the engine room. She found Shepard, Odeg, and the salarian captain waiting just outside. They were discussing something, but stopped when she arrived.

"Good to see you Tali, I hear the engineer has managed to fix the drive." Shepard said as a greeting.

Kirrahe spoke next, "Yes, wish your AI would have allowed us to study the engineer in more detail, bioengineered super computer that can understand new technology at a rapid pace. Exciting discovery, unfortunate that existence breaks many laws against genetic tampering and synthetic intelligences."

Tali narrowed her eyes behind her visor, "AIs are illegal for a reason."

"Not in human space they aren't," Shepard remarked casually.

"Maybe they should be," She remarked.

"You're hurting my feelings here." Artemis' voice sounded over some nearby speakers as her avatar appeared in a holopad. "I save you from the covenant, get you a ride off an orbital defense platform, and Reach, saving you from a slow death by thirst or hunger, give you a place to stay aboard _my_ ship. All you do in return is tell everyone I should be deleted."

Tali found herself speechless, feeling like she was still in her bubble, being scolded for trying to get out as a young child. Eventually she managed to get out a few words, "but you're not…"

"What? I'm not a person?" Artemis asked accusingly.

"That's not what I meant," Tali answered, feeling a little more confidence return, "I meant that you're dangerous."

"Why? Because I control the ship?" Artemis countered, "See Odeg right there? He's a shipmaster, or he was before his ship was destroyed. As a shipmaster he is at least partly responsible for the death of millions under the guns of his ship, and if my guess is correct, at least a few hundred in direct combat, either in a fighter or on foot, before he attained that rank. He is a mass murderer in most senses of the phrase. Yet you trust him to stand next to you armed."

Tali winced at the numbers, but told herself that the Sangheili was deluded and tricked into committing those atrocities.

"Let's move on, Shepard, who you're so eager to trust, is an ONI spook." Artemis paused as if to take a breath, "The Office of Naval Intelligence isn't the friendliest place in the world. If he was ordered to when we get back to Earth, he could probably take you out in dozens of different ways, knock you unconscious and send you to section three's oh so tender care."

"Then there is the STG," Artemis turned to the salarian, "I'm sure you've heard of the Salarian's private recon and assassination branch. They're working for the council, an agency that employs people who are above the law, and whose only orders are to preserve galactic security. Now imagine that Kirrahe here has orders to keep everything in this sector under wraps, to prevent the covenant from learning about the citadel. Do you think we would know ahead of time, or be able to stop the STG team if they had orders to destroy this ship?"

Before Tali could reply Artemis spoke again, "but no, you trust them, you don't spare them a second glance. All I've done on the other hand is try to protect my ship and crew from our enemies. I would have thought that was an admirable goal to a quarian, but apparently I was mistaken. I'm not a Geth, the only people I've ever killed were covenant attempting to harm my crew."

Tali tried for several moments to come up with a counterpoint. Most of them involved the Geth, and how they had nearly wiped out her people. All she had to do was look over to Shepard and Odeg for that argument to fall flat on its face. After twenty seven years they had somehow managed to put aside the past and fight together. Eventually she came to the conclusion that maybe Artemis was right, maybe she was being unreasonably prejudiced.

Tali supposed she should apologize to the AI, "I'm sorry Artemis, it was unfair of me."

The AI smiled at her and spun around on her holopad, "Thank you Tali, that wasn't so hard now was it? Let's see what the gas bags have gotten accomplished in the meantime."

With that the doors opened and the group stepped inside the slipspace generator room.

ooooooo


End file.
